“Cave” is what Republicans do best. Bastards!
Senate Republicans Wednesday said they will stop filibustering the financial regulatory reform bill, backing down after Democrats said they would make them stay through the night into Thursday morning to sustain their blocking of the legislation.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, said there had been a “key agreement reached.”
Market mechanisms, like pricing, do a better job than planners because they incorporate what everyone knows indirectly through signals like price, without central planning.
Thus, no matter how deceptively simple and appealing command economy programs are, they are sure to trip up their operators, because the operators can’t possibly be smart enough to make them work.
via Glenn Harlan Reynolds: Progressives can’t get past the Knowledge Problem | Washington Examiner.
Boosted by improving economic prospects and a flurry of census hiring, the U.S. added 162,000 jobs in March, the best job growth in three years and a potential turning point for the slowly-healing labor markets.
The Labor Department said the unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.7%, as economists had expected.
Economists had forecasted slightly stronger job growth of 190,000 jobs, but the figures are still a vast improvement from a year ago, when the U.S. was losing hundreds of thousands of jobs a month. March marked the third month of job growth in the past six months.
Stocks suffered a late-day drop on Wednesday as portfolio managers positioned themselves for the kickoff to the second quarter, but the losses weren’t enough to prevent the Dow from inking its best first quarter in more than a decade.
via Late Hiccup Caps Bullish First Quarter – FOXBusiness.com.
Three years after the housing bust sent foreclosures rates soaring, the White House has gone back to the drawing board to try to keep another 8 million homeowners in their homes.
But a series of enhancements to the Obama administration’s year-old foreclosure relief plan announced Friday does little to attack the fundamental logjams that have plagued a program designed to modify loans to create more affordable payments.
via Latest housing plan might help only a few – Eye on the Economy- msnbc.com.
The bond vigilantes are finally flexing their muscles. A long period of stability for the US government bond market showed signs of cracking this week as a lack of investor appetite for new debt sent the benchmark 10-year yield to its highest level since last June.
For more than a year, analysts have been warning that record sized debt sales by the US Treasury were at odds with a 10-year yield sitting comfortably below 4 per cent. This week, the yield on 10-year notes jumped from 3.65 per cent to a peak of 3.92 per cent on Thursday. On Friday it was 3.87 per cent.
via FT.com / Capital Markets – Supply fears start to hit Treasuries.
Sales of existing homes fell for a third straight month in February, pushing sales down to the lowest level since last July. There is concern the fragile housing rebound is faltering, making it harder for the overall economy to recover.
The National Association of Realtors said Tuesday that sales of previously occupied homes dropped 0.6 percent in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.02 million.
via February existing home sales drop 0.6 percent – Yahoo! Finance.
For the first time since before the Civil War and perhaps ever, more people in Indiana work in government than in all the factories in the state.
Rocked by layoffs, imports and automation, workers in Indiana plants numbered 430,800 in January, while government at all levels, including schools and publicly owned hospitals, employed 442,800 workers.
via Indiana government positions surpass factory jobs – NewsTimes.
U.S. housing starts and permits to build new homes both fell in February as winter storms in some parts of the country disrupted home building, a government report showed Tuesday.
The Commerce Department said housing starts fell 5.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 575,000 units, reversing the prior month’s gain.
via Housing Starts Drop 5.9% to 575,000 Rate – FOXBusiness.com.
Street clashes broke out between rioting youths and police in central Athens today as tens of thousands demonstrated during a nationwide strike against the cash-strapped government.
Hundreds of masked and hooded youths punched and kicked motorcycle police, knocking several off their bikes, as police responded with volleys of tear gas and stun grenades.
The violence spread after the end of the march to a nearby square, where police faced off with stone-throwing anarchists and suffocating clouds of tear gas sent patrons scurrying from open-air cafes.
via Greek riots: Up to 60,000 people take to streets to protest against government | Mail Online.
Loudoun ranks as the richest county in the United States, immediately followed by Fairfax and Howard counties, while Montgomery, traditionally one of the wealthiest, is now 10th.
Forbes magazine ranked eight other Washington-area counties in its list of the nation’s 25 wealthiest counties, far more than any other area in the country. The rankings are based on 2008 median household income data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
via 6 of the 10 richest counties in U.S. are in DC area | Washington Examiner.
Millions of Americans have been forced to rely on unemployment payments for extended periods as the nation struggles through its longest period of high joblessness in a generation, and critics are taking aim, saying that the Depression-era program created as a temporary bridge for laid-off workers is turning into an expensive entitlement.
About 11.4 million out-of-work people now collect unemployment compensation, at a cost of $10 billion a month. Half of them have been receiving payments for more than six months, the usual insurance limit. But under multiple extensions enacted by the federal government in response to the downturn, workers can collect the payments for as long as 99 weeks in states with the highest unemployment rates — the longest period since the program’s inception.
Doomsday may be just around the corner.
That’s not some apocalyptic bumper sticker. It’s the learned opinion of numerous financial experts when describing the budget crises facing a number of U.S. states, notably Illinois, California and New Jersey.
“This is an unprecedented crisis,” said Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation, an influential Illinois-based tax and fiscal policy research group.
via States Facing Financial Doomsday as Debts Mount – FOXBusiness.com.
– On Wednesday, the Commerce Department reported that January new-home sales dropped 11.2 percent from December, plunging to their lowest level in nearly 50 years.
– On Tuesday, the Conference Board reported that February consumer confidence fell sharply from January, driven down by the survey’s “present situation index” — how confident consumers feel right now — which hit its lowest mark since the 1983 recession. On Friday, the Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey also showed a falloff from January to February.
– On Thursday, the government’s report on new jobless claims filed during the previous week shot up 22,000, which was exactly opposite of what economists predicted. Forecasters expected new jobless claims to drop by about 20,000.
via Economy Watch: Three indicators spell trouble for the recovery – washingtonpost.com.
The number of Americans filing for initial unemployment insurance surged to just below the 500,000 level last week, and have climbed more than 12% over the past two weeks, the government said Thursday.
There were 496,000 initial job claims filed in the week ended Feb. 20, up 22,000 from a revised 474,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said in a weekly report. The prior week, there were 442,000 claims filed.
via Initial unemployment claims surge to 496,000 – Feb. 25, 2010.
Sales of new homes plunged to a record low in January, underscoring the formidable challenges facing the housing industry as it tries to recover from the worst slump in decades.
The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that new home sales dropped 11.2 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 309,000 units, the lowest level on records going back nearly a half century. The big drop was a surprise to economists who were expecting a 5 percent increase over December’s pace.
via New home sales drop 11 percent in January, new low – Yahoo! Finance.
Walmart has suffered its first fall in quarterly sales at its US discount stores, underlining the challenges facing future growth in its home market as the economy recovers.
In the important holiday quarter ending on January 31, net sales at Walmart’s 3,400-plus US stores fell 0.5 per cent year-on-year to $71bn (€52bn). Comparable store sales declined 2 per cent. Customer traffic also fell.
via FT.com / Retail & Consumer – Walmart suffers first US sales decline.
Republicans sparred with President Barack Obama over proposals to create jobs in dueling radio addresses Saturday, highlighting the difficulty of reaching bipartisan solutions in a political climate marked by partisan bickering.
The Dow returned to four-digit territory on Friday as persisting worries about the debt of slow-growing European countries and a mixed jobs report prevented Wall Street from rebounding from its worst day in more than nine months.
via Dow Tumbles Below 10000 on Sovereign Credit Woes – FOXBusiness.com.
U.S. employers unexpectedly cut 20,000 in January, but the unemployment rate surprisingly fell to a five-month low of 9.7 percent, according to a government report on Friday that hinted at some labor market improvement starting to take root.
via Economy Sheds 20,000 Jobs; Rate Drops to 9.7 Percent – CNBC.
The US transportation chief’s public rebukes of Toyota’s handling of a massive safety recall have raised eyebrows, given the US government’s major stake in rivals General Motors and Chrysler.
“The optics are terrible because — and this is what happens when a government owns a company – the two companies that are going to gain the most out of this are General Motors and Chrysler,” said Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland’s business school.
Growing fears over the health of Europe’s weakest economies rocked global markets on Thursday, sparking sharp falls in shares on the continent and a worldwide flight to the safety of the US dollar and Treasuries.
The impact of declining sentiment in Europe was compounded in the US by poor employment data, with the number of American workers claiming jobless benefits rising unexpectedly last week.
via FT.com / Capital Markets – Europe fears rock global markets.
The US debt is on track to hit a congressionally proposed debt ceiling of 14.3 trillion dollars by the end of February, the Treasury said Wednesday, a day ahead of a key vote to raise it to that level.
via AFP: US debt to hit proposed ceiling by end-February: Treasury.
If an employer can’t afford to add a human resource/liability which would probably cost a minimum $30K, what the hell is a $5K Tax Credit gonna do for that.
Today the President that it might be a good idea to tax banks. If this is the best he’s got, we are in for a world hurt.
The White House pushed hard against opposition to the tax. The president spoke of “obscene bonuses” and the “twisted logic” of bank executives who oppose the tax. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs suggested the banks were trying to pass the tab for their woes to taxpayers.
Industry officials warned that the new tax could constrain bankers’ ability to make new loans, which could hurt the economy. In addition, some analysts cautioned that the plan could encourage banks, to reduce their exposure to the fee, to shift more assets and liabilities into the types of off-balance-sheet vehicles that helped sow the seeds of the financial crisis.
My thinking this is all a smoke screen to divert attention from the failing health care legislation.
Only the legislature could write such crap into law that would destroy perfectly good vehicles.
Now instead of this vehicle being passed down the market food chain it has been aborted prematurely and precious environmental resources will have to be expended to replace it with a brand new vehicle.
These are the same idiots that are supposedly reforming health care. I hope they fail miserably.
Obama says, we need an economy that works from the bottom up.
I only require one thing, show me a working model of this bottom up economy in practice. Show me one where the bottom provides jobs to the upper part.
Show me, otherwise shut the hell up.