Economy News

No, The Stimulus Didn’t Destroy More Jobs Than It Created

1:40 pm EST May 17th, 2011 | Conservative | 5 Comments

Fox News is pushing an academic paper making the claim, but guess what?

What?

Text Of Obama Speech In Cleveland On The Economy

1:58 pm EST September 8th, 2010 | News | 23 Comments

Remarks of President Barack Obama on the Economy – As Prepared for Delivery
Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
Cleveland, Ohio

As Prepared for Delivery—

Good afternoon, Ohio. It’s good to be back.

In the fall of 2008, one of the last rallies of my presidential campaign was here in the Cleveland area. It was a hopeful time, just two days before the election. We knew that if we pulled it off, we’d have the chance to tackle some big and difficult challenges that had been facing this country for a long time.

Topic: Economy, President Obama

Bought & Paid For Members Of Congress Weakened Financial Reform

1:34 am EST July 15th, 2010 | Politics | 4 Comments

The only word to describe people who indulge in this sort of behavior has to be “whore.”

Joseph Crowley

The Office of Congressional Ethics has sent corporate donors and fund-raising hosts more than three dozen requests for documents involving eight members who solicited and took large contributions from financial institutions even as they were debating the landmark regulatory bill, according to lawyers involved in the inquiry.

The requests are focusing on a series of fund-raisers last December, in the days immediately before the House’s initial adoption of the sweeping overhaul, which could win final approval this week. Some of the fund-raising events took place the same days as crucial votes.

For example, on Dec. 10, one of the lawmakers under investigation, Representative Joseph Crowley, a New York Democrat who sits on the Ways and Means Committee, left the Capitol during the House debate to attend a fund-raising event for him hosted by a lobbyist at her nearby Capitol Hill town house that featured financial firms, along with other donors. After collecting thousands of dollars in checks, Mr. Crowley returned to the floor of the House just in time to vote against a series of amendments that would have imposed tougher restrictions on Wall Street.

Not surprisingly, one of the top hits for Joe Crowley is as a DLC “New Dem Of The Week.”

Topic: Business, Economy, Financial Reform, US House

Jacob Lew To Be Nominated As New OMB Director

11:16 am EST July 13th, 2010 | News | Comments Off

jacob lew Link

President Barack Obama says he will nominate Jacob Lew to serve as director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Lew previously held the position during the Clinton administration. He currently serves as the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources.

Topic: Budget, Economy, OMB

Michael Steele Defends Wall Street

4:31 pm EST June 22nd, 2010 | Republicans | 4 Comments

Sweet Lord, if he’s a Democratic plant he’s overdoing it.

RNC chair Michael Steele defended Wall Street as the creators of wealth in a combative interview today while urging the Obama admin not to ‘demonize’ and ‘demagogue’ against a system that plunged the economy into recession.
In a stop on CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box,’ Steele attacked government spending and the admin, all while urging more trust in Wall Street.

‘Don’t trust the federal government to get it done. We’re here on Wall Street. We are on Main Street. Trust those people who built the economy in the past. The federal government has never created one job that is sustainable long term.’

‘Good luck telling the American people to trust Wall Street to create jobs,’ shot back host Erin Burnett.

Topic: Economy, Michael Steele, Wall Street

Economy Grew 3.2% In First Quarter

9:01 am EST April 30th, 2010 | News | 19 Comments

Good news for America. Bad news for the right, who is invested in fail.

Gross domestic product expanded at a 3.2 percent pace, the Commerce Department said in its first estimate — marking three straight quarters of growth as the economy climbs out of the worst recession since the 1930s.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast GDP, which measures total goods and services output within U.S. borders, growing at a 3.4 percent rate in the first three months of 2010 after a 5.6 percent growth pace in the fourth quarter.

Despite the slowdown from the prior quarter, details of the report were fairly upbeat, with consumer spending accelerating at a 3.6 percent rate, more than double the 1.6 percent pace in the fourth quarter. The first-quarter rise was the largest since the first quarter of 2007.

Topic: Economy

ObamaBoom Watch: Ford Announces $2.1 Billion Profit

8:58 am EST April 27th, 2010 | Business | 15 Comments

Good news for American business, bad news for the right…

The Ford Motor Company reported its fourth consecutive quarterly profit in Tuesday and said higher sales produced its largest pretax operating profit in six years.

Ford said it earned a net profit of $2.1 billion, or 50 cents a share, and that it expected “solid profits” and positive cash flow from its automotive operations for 2010, a year sooner than it had previously forecast. In the quarter a year ago, Ford lost $1.4 billion, or 60 cents a share.

Topic: Economy, ObamaBoom

60%+ Support Financial Regulation, So No Wonder The GOP Opposes

4:47 pm EST April 26th, 2010 | Business | 54 Comments

I’m not even going to pretend to know why the GOP opposes wildly popular financial regulation reform, but there you go.

About two-thirds of Americans support stricter regulations on the way banks and other financial institutions conduct their business, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Majorities also back two main components of legislation congressional Democrats plan to bring to a vote in the Senate this week: greater federal oversight of consumer loans and a company-paid fund that would cover the costs of dismantling failed firms that put the broader economy at risk.

A third pillar of the reform effort draws a more even split: 43 percent support federal regulation of the derivatives market; 41 percent are opposed. Nearly one in five – 17 percent – express no opinion on this complicated topic.

The GOP is going to attempt to argue that Democrats are in the pockets of fat cats while doing the bidding of fat cats.

Topic: Economy

ObamaBoom Watch: Economists See Stronger Than Expected Recovery

9:58 am EST April 26th, 2010 | News | 91 Comments

Conservatives have positioned themselves so that bad news for them is almost always good news for America.

The recovery is shaping up to be stronger than expected and there is little risk the economy will slip back into a recession, according to USA TODAY’s quarterly survey of 46 leading economists.

Yet most still say the rebound will fall short of the sharp, V-shaped upturns that often follow severe slumps, and the 9.7% jobless rate will fall slowly.

As the Fed meets to assess the economy this week, seven in 10 economists say they’re more optimistic than they were three months ago.

“I think we’ve gotten to a point where it’s a self-sustaining recovery,” says Standard & Poor’s chief economist David Wyss.

The experts predict growth of 3% this year, up from forecasts of 2.8% in January. In V-shaped upswings, growth is often 7% or more.

None see a return to recession by next year, and those who see some risk say it’s lessened markedly.

As they did in the late ’90s, I’m sure Republicans will try to take credit for the Obama-era economic recovery after the Bush Recession. But the roll call votes in congress don’t lie.

Topic: Economy

ObamaBoom Watch: Signs Of Recovery

12:36 am EST April 26th, 2010 | Economy | Comments Off

NY Times:

After the worst downturn since the Great Depression, signs of recovery are mounting — albeit tinged with ambiguity. Despite worries that American consumers might hunker down for years — spooked by debt, lost savings and unemployment — thriftiness has given way to the outlines of a new shopping spree: households are replacing cars, upgrading home furnishings and amassing gadgets.

Many economists estimate that consumer spending — which makes up some 70 percent of American economic activity — swelled by 4 percent during the first three months of the year, more than the double the pace once anticipated. Some have nudged upward their estimates for economic growth to more than 3 percent this year.

‘Consumers are showing extraordinary resilience,’ said Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group. ‘There’s a lot of pent-up demand out there that is now being unleashed. The whole supply chain system is now being revitalized.’

Is this going to be a repeat of the 1990s boom? No. But my prediction is we’re headed towards a steady, growing economy.

Topic: Economy, President Obama