Well, this should put a sock in the mouths of those who think Obama's stimulus package is just throwing away money and not helping the economy. The jobs news out this morning was a surprise to everybody. The most optimistic prediction I saw believed that the report would show 130,000 jobs lost month. But no…. 11,000. That's it. 11,000. So … Read More
Bush’s Secretary Of Labor Must Think We’re All Idiots
On Fox News today, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao — who is also the wife of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) – said that the economy is entirely the Democrats' fault, not the Bush administration's. To bolster her argument she cites unemployment statistics… watch: Yup, she compares unemployment statistics now with those from 2007. Why didn't she cite stats from 2008? Because … Read More
The Geography Of Recession
Sadly, this isn't embeddable, but click here to look at an animated unemployment map of the United States as it marches from January 2007 to present. Yikes.
Spending vs. Tax Cuts
Yesterday, I mentioned the CBO report which showed that Obama's stumulus package saved or created up to 1.2 million jobs, keeping the unemployment rate from going as high as 11% or even 12%. But Ezra Klein dug deep into the report and discovered something else. The report broke down which kind of stimulus actually worked best: The table above comes … Read More
The Stimulus Worked
Yes, the unemployment situation is bad, and a lot of people are blaming the Obama stimulus package for not working and/or making things worse. Of course, what some people don't see — or can't see — is what things would have been like had it not been for the stimulus package. Fortunately, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office just released a … Read More
Thanks, But I Think I Know What 10% Means
The New York Times has a graphic today explaining the unemployment rate, which is at 10%. Um, could you go over that again?
Reich: Hold On To Your Wallets
Clinton economic advisor Robert Reich isn't impressed with the Dow breaking 10,000: How did the Dow break 10,000 when the rest of the economy is in the toilet? 1. Corporate earnings are up — mainly because companies have been cutting costs. Payrolls comprise 70 percent of most companies' costs, which means companies have been slashing jobs. In the end, this … Read More
Lesson Not Learned
WSJ: Wall Street On Track To Award Record Pay Major U.S. banks and securities firms are on pace to pay their employees about $140 billion this year — a record high that shows compensation is rebounding despite regulatory scrutiny of Wall Street's pay culture. Workers at 23 top investment banks, hedge funds, asset managers and stock and commodities exchanges can … Read More
The Other New FTC Rule
Earlier today, I mentioned a new FTC rule which, rather unusually, applied to bloggers: if you endorse or recommend something in exchange for payment (or a free sample), you must disclose the fact that your review was paid for. While I tend to frown on the regulation of bloggers (and the Internet in general), this regulation struck me as reasonable. The … Read More
The Lehman Crash: One Year Later
We may be seeing the hint of a whiff of the first signs that our economic woes are taking a turn for the better, but what about the long term? What about the reforms that Obama promised to ensure that Wall Street greed and bungling don't get us into another mess 5, 10, or 20 years down the road? For … Read More
Health Insurance And The Free Market
Tthose opposed to health care reform do so because they want to keep "their" insurance. (Forget for a moment that under the Obama health care public option, you can keep "your" insurance). But how many people can actually claim that "their" health insurance is actually theirs? I mean, did they select it? Was it their choice? I buy insurance for my car; … Read More
The New Gilded Age
The first Gilded Age was a time in the late 19th-early 20th century. It was a time of huge ecnomic disparity. On the one end, you had masses of poor immigrants and farmers, huddled in tenement shacks, and ekeing out a living. Child labor, poor health — these were the earmarks ofOn the other end of the spectrum, you had … Read More
Good Economic News
Everyone expected the unemployment numbers from last month to go up (it was 9.5% in June) to 9.6%, which is (on the whote) good, since that would mean that unemployment rate is going up at a slower late than previous months. That would, of course, mean that the recession is slowing down. Didn't happen. The unemployment rate went down….. that's the … Read More
Obama’s Bear Market
Remember about four months ago when all you could read from conservative blogs was crap like this: The Obama Bear Market With yesterday’s declines, we now have an “official” Obama bear market, defined as a 20% decline. The S&P 500 index closed at 850 on the last trading day before Obama’s inauguration, and now it’s at 682. And it barely … Read More
Better Conservative Criticism Please
Yes, the Obama Administration spendt billions of dollars in economic stimulus spending, and yes, it is important that that money be spent wisely. If conservative critics want to identify wasteful ways in which that stimulus money is spent, then all the power to them. In fact, the Obama Administration has made this very easy — by making sure that recovery.org … Read More