Category: Economic Stimulus
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Monday, January 11, 2010
Economic Steroids Are Toxic Too / Economics / Economic Stimulus
AS THE NEW YEAR OPENS, THE stock market is behaving as if the past 20 years were about to repeat themselves: Another recession will turn into a robust expansion. Stock prices already are discounting an earnings recovery to something only slightly below the level before the financial crisis. Risk-taking is in vogue again.
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Wednesday, January 06, 2010
How to lower Healthcare cost AND create millions of good decent, permanent jobs: / Politics / Economic Stimulus
Cindy Merrill writes: 1. Expand Meals On Wheels to all rural communitiesRead full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Larry Summers is Steering U.S. Economy Towards Structural Adjustment / Economics / Economic Stimulus
There's no fixed number of greenbacks in a vault at the Treasury which limit how much the federal government can spend. Since the US pays its debts in its own currency--it can print as many dollars as it pleases. Of course, if boosting the money supply triggers inflation, the Fed has to withdraw liquidity and raise interest rates. But that's not the problem at present. The problem is how to zap the economy back to life.
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Wednesday, November 25, 2009
America's Stealth Stimulus Plan To Allowing Home Owners to become Deadbeats / Economics / Economic Stimulus
I was looking through the avalanche of economic data today, and it struck me how once again Americans are spending well over their income growth. I thought to myself, well part of this are all the programs where the American government is subsidizing consumption. In fact we're at the point one of every six dollars of consumption are from goverment, meaning you only need to "earn" 5/6ths of your spending power. [Jun 5, 2009: 1 in 6 Dollars of Income Now Via Government; Highest Since 1929]
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Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Deconstruction of DeLong's Economic Stimulus Accounting / Economics / Economic Stimulus
Ever since the Obama administration released its report detailing the number of jobs "saved or created" from the $787 billion stimulus package, cynics have been having a field day playing with the numbers. Investigations have revealed that many of the respondents' claims of job creation are bogus, and simple division shows that some states received more than $500,000 in stimulus awards for each job "saved or created."
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Saturday, November 21, 2009
Financial and Economic Situation Could Get Ugly Fast / Economics / Economic Stimulus
Things could get ugly fast. With the Democrats backing-off on a second round of stimulus, the Fed signaling an end to quantitative easing, and Obama moaning about rising deficits; there's a good chance that the stumbling recovery could turn into another sharp plunge. Bank lending is shrinking, consumers spending is off, housing prices are falling, unemployment is soaring and the wholesale credit markets are in a shambles. This isn't the time to slash government support in the name of "fiscal responsibility". Obama needs to ignore the gloomsters and alarmists and pay attention to the Nobel laureates like Joe Stiglitz and Paul Krugman. They're the guys who know how to steer the ship to safe water.
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Saturday, November 21, 2009
The Great Economic Stimulus Debate of 2009 / Economics / Economic Stimulus
"Crybabies need not apply"
Barack Obama has decided to push the economy back into recession, and no one can figure out why. Perhaps the impressionable Obama has come under the spell of the deficit hawks and crystal gazers who see Armageddon around every corner. Or maybe he's thrown-in with the snappish Marc Faber whose dire predictions of hyperinflation are about as cheery as Hieronymus Bosch's vision of Hell. Whatever the reason, the President has done a hasty volte-face and decided that trimming the deficits in the middle of a severe economic downturn is the way to go. Here's what Obama said just days ago on his Asia tour:
Monday, November 16, 2009
Second U.S. Economic Stimulus Package Headed Our Way? / Economics / Economic Stimulus
Jon D. Markman writes: Is the recent market softness something to be worried about?
Not if U.S. President Barack Obama & Co. comes through with a second stimulus package – as I’m expecting.
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Sunday, November 15, 2009
The New Command Economy Impact on Stocks and Crude Oil / Economics / Economic Stimulus
One week on and sentiment, judging by meetings with US investors over the past week, has again shifted to the “melt up” into year end. If the failure of the stock market to respond more positively to the last two monthly ISM data points is a cautionary signal, the break out of the oil price in recent weeks after four months of sideways consolidation around the US$70/bbl level is the sort of market action likely to be associated with a “melt up” (see Figure 1). This is because oil is for now a proxy for risk.
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Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Global Economic Stimulus, The Surety Referee / Economics / Economic Stimulus
Our Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told us this weekend that global stimulus needs to be in place until a recovery is “assured.” This government--which has consistently displayed the foresight and navigation skills of a deaf bat—is now telling us that the wealth redistribution and inflationary policies of the Fed and Administration will be in effect until they have complete confidence this crisis has ended.
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Thursday, November 05, 2009
The Feds Have No Faith in Economic Recovery / Economics / Economic Stimulus
The stock market has enjoyed a significant rally since the end of the first quarter. The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported last week that the economy grew at a 3.5% annual rate in the third quarter--a figure they achieved by that claiming inflation was running at only a 0.8% annual rate, despite a sharp drop in the dollar, a spike in commodity prices and record highs for gold.
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Wednesday, November 04, 2009
RIP the Private Sector Economy / Economics / Economic Stimulus
Long-time readers of Gains, Pains, & Capital know that one of our central themes is the REAL issues plaguing the US economy and how the powers that be have completely failed to do anything to remedy them.
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Monday, November 02, 2009
The Political Economy Postponing Providence / Economics / Economic Stimulus
That’s the game – postponing providence – putting off the inevitable until the next guy’s shift. This is the cache of our political economy, as with all other comparables before it, now maturing into rot. All dominant cultures recede this way of course, dying from within as it were. And the American Empire is no different, with its hollowed out economy, markets, and values. Despite the obvious signs of this decay, most people continue to deny and ignore the inevitable, however acceleration of collapse will continue to challenge such fancy, eventually becoming self-evident to even the less endowed.
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Sunday, November 01, 2009
Obama Goes Wobbly Over More Economic Stimulus / Economics / Economic Stimulus
The recession is over. Thursdays report from the Commerce Dept. confirmed that the economy expanded in the third quarter by 3.5 percent, better than most economists estimates. GDP had contracted in the four previous quarters in the longest and deepest recession since the Great Depression. Massive government stimulus, cash for clunkers, and inventory restocking accounted for most of the surge in economic activity.
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Friday, October 30, 2009
U.S. GDP Surprise Due to Government Interventions / Economics / Economic Stimulus
The GDP numbers out yesterday, which showed economic growth at 3.5% in the third quarter, brought a deafening chorus from public and private economists who all agreed that the recession is officially over. With such a strong report, they are happy to tell us that not only has the Fat Lady finished her aria, but she has left the building and is sipping champagne in the bath. As usual, it falls on me to rain on the parade.
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Friday, October 30, 2009
Stimulus Nation / Economics / Economic Stimulus
The result really wasn’t all that surprising. The reaction wasn’t either. On Thursday morning the Commerce Department released its advance GDP reading and proclaimed the end of the recession by asserting the American economy ‘grew’ at an annualized rate of 3.5% in the third quarter. A previous commentary already pointed out the fact that government borrowing shouldn’t be counted in GDP calculations anyway, so I’ll not repeat that exercise. Certainly there isn’t much to say on this topic that hasn’t already been said. However, there are some salient points that have been glossed over that are worth mentioning.
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Saturday, October 10, 2009
Government Deficit Spending Killing the U.S. Free Market Economy / Economics / Economic Stimulus
Killing the Goose
What Were We Thinking?
Let's Play Turn It Around
Peggy Noonan, maybe the most gifted essayist of our time, wrote a few weeks ago about the vague concern that many of us have that the monster looming up ahead of us has the potential (my interpretation) for not just plucking a few feathers from the goose that lays the golden egg (the US free-market economy), or stealing a few more of the valuable eggs, but of actually killing the goose. Today we look at the possibility that the fiscal path of the enormous US government deficits we are on could indeed kill the goose, or harm it so badly it will make the lost decades that Japan has suffered seem like a stroll in the park.
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Friday, October 09, 2009
United States On the Fast Track to Socialism / Politics / Economic Stimulus
The economic meltdown has put the country on the fast track to socialism, but through a series of tiny steps. One need only to examine the supposed victories in the war on depression to see how this is happening. The latest is the claim that the Obama administration has successfully renegotiated many mortgage obligations in a way that allows people to keep their homes.
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Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Gold Understands that Stock Market Liquidity Rallies Do Not Create Jobs / Economics / Economic Stimulus
Outside of minimum wage jobs and Wal-Mart poverty line work, today’s US economy appears unable to create good jobs. If the US economy cannot create new jobs, Americans will be in no position to save and invest for their futures, nor will they have any purchasing power that would boost the economy.
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Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Financial Markets Resume Ascent on Hopes of Continuing Liquidity Flood / Economics / Economic Stimulus
Financial markets have resumed their ascent, partly on expectations/ hopes that policy comments and actions this week will underscore the likelihood that markets will remain flooded with excess liquidity for some time to come. In this regard, the ECB is due to conduct another 12-month repo operation today. Although the size of the operation is expected to be nothing like the €442bn injected into the system in late June, the fact the ECB is content to provide further long-term liquidity support, despite growing signs of economic recovery, is being viewed as positive for equities and short-dated bonds.
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