A Full Fact-Check of Niall Ferguson's Very Bad Argument Against Obama - Matthew O'Brien. A counterfactual history of the past four years.
Is It Better to Buy or Rent? - Interactive Graphic. Nation's Economists Quietly Evacuating Their Families. “Prescriptions rise when Uncle Sam buys” – Medicare prescription drug spending has increased 22% since 2006. The United States spends 58 percent of the total defense dollars paid by the world's top 10 military powers. Who holds America’s 15 Trillion dollar debt? The Federal Reserve has been looking at the progress of the US economic recovery and may begin to end stimulus programs if progress remains steady.
That includes eventually winding down the amount of debt it purchases from the Treasury - currently $85 billion a month in long-term bonds - though purchases will continue for the time being. United States Corporate Tax Rate Highest In The World. Face the Facts USA. Everything most people think about the budget is wrong. In the cold predawn darkness of Monday, February 13, 2012, Robert Friedlander walked into a Starbucks three blocks from the White House.
As they had been instructed by e-mail the night before, a half dozen reporters were waiting for him—one each from Dow Jones, Bloomberg, Reuters, Associated Press, Politico, and the Washington Post. With no ceremony and not much conversation, the young White House budget office aide slipped each of them a CD in a plain, square white envelope. The contents: President Barack Obama’s budget for the coming fiscal year. “It’s embargoed until 11:15,” he said. The Citigroup CEO Who Broke Glass-Steagall Wants It Back. From an Unlikely Source, a Serious Challenge to Wall Street. Treasury Officials Met With Prostitutes, Accepted Gifts From Regulated Institutions: Report.
Working at the Treasury frankly sounds kind of boring, which may explain why a number of employees allegedly spiced up their lives with golf, prostitutes and drunken altercations at football games. Internal documents from the U.S. Policy Basics: Where Do Our Federal Tax Dollars Go? The federal government collects taxes to finance various public services. As policymakers and citizens weigh key decisions about revenues and expenditures, it is instructive to examine what the government does with the money it collects.
In fiscal year 2013, the federal government spent $3.5 trillion, amounting to 21 percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, or the total value of goods and services that a country produces in a year. Of that $3.5 trillion, nearly $2.8 trillion was financed by federal revenues. A Market in Ruins. According to a recent report by Clear Capital, “The nation’s home prices rebounded with quarterly and yearly gains of 1.7%.” The Home Data Index (HDI) report, which was released on July 10, shows that “Regional performance improved across the board”, and that “Home price forecast through 2012 shows continued growth for the nation…” Hooray! Housing prices have hit bottom and the market is slowly recovering, right?
A growing number of experts appear to agree with this view, such as the Wall Street Journal’s economics editor, David Wessel. Bill Moyers: Is Labor a Lost Cause? Jobs Crisis Denial. Before any problem can be fixed it must first be acknowledged.
The jobs crisis stays in the shadows, out of mind, and consequently unaddressed. This is allowed to happen because those in power – Republicans and Democrats – both have political reasons to remain silent. When the jobs crisis is discussed, the word “crisis” is seldom used, and the conversation is conducted with hushed tones and minimizing vocabulary. Therefore, when the monthly national jobs report was announced for June, there was quiet grumbling instead of passionate oratory; passivity instead of mobilization and action. Florida congressman Alan Grayson laughs in Ben Bernanke's face, priceless! Organic Food Purists Worry About Big Companies’ Influence. Michael J. Potter is one of the last little big men left in . More than 40 years ago, Mr. Potter bought into a hippie cafe and “whole earth” grocery here that has since morphed into a major organic foods producer and wholesaler, Eden Foods. But one morning last May, he hopped on his motorcycle and took off across the Plains to challenge what organic food — or as he might have it, so-called organic food — has become since his tie-dye days in the Haight district of San Francisco.
Www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS22331.pdf. Dollar Bill On Floor Sends Wall Street Into Frenzy. NEW YORK—Wall Street investors experienced a sudden surge in optimism Tuesday when, after six tumultuous weeks that saw record drops in the Dow Jones industrial average, a $1 bill was spotted on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
The dollar bill was discovered in the northwest corner of the trading floor at approximately 12:05 p.m., and its condition was reported as "crinkled, but real. " Word of the tangible denomination of U.S. currency spread quickly across the NYSE, sending traders into a frenzied rush of shouting, arm-flailing, hooting, hollering, and, according to eyewitnesses, at least one dog pile. A guide to Trader Joe's. The Real Story of the Housing Crash. The economy is certain to occupy center stage in the presidential race this fall.
Unfortunately neither Governor Romney nor President Obama are likely to give us an accurate account of the economic problems we are now facing. Romney’s efforts seem intended to convince the public that President Obama has turned the country into the Soviet Union, with government bureaucrats shoving aside business leaders to take the commanding role in the economy.
He will have lots of money to make this case, which he will need since it is so far from reality. Senators Grovel, Embarrass Themselves at Dimon Hearing. Goldman Sachs Hires Single Morally Decent Human Being To Work In Separate, Enclosed Cubicle. NEW YORK—Seeking to mollify critics over its role in the global financial crisis, Goldman Sachs announced Friday the hiring of junior analyst Greg Kohler, who executives said is the investment bank's first and only employee to possess a clear set of morals or a basic understanding of right and wrong.
Joseph Stiglitz: Romney economic plan would "significantly" up the odds of recession. Mitt Romney shouldn't be expecting any checks in the mail from Joseph Stiglitz.
The Nobel Prize-winning economist — formerly chairman of President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers — has just destroyed Mitt's economic plan. In a wide-ranging interview today with Bloomberg, Stiglitz said a Romney presidency would be very bad news for the world's largest economy. The Economy Comes Unglued. Ever since the beginning of the financial crisis and Quantitative Easing, the question has been before us: How can the Federal Reserve maintain zero interest rates for banks and negative real interest rates for savers and bond holders when the US government is adding $1.5 trillion to the national debt every year via its budget deficits?
Not long ago the Fed announced that it was going to continue this policy for another 2 or 3 years. Indeed, the Fed is locked into the policy. Without the artificially low interest rates, the debt service on the national debt would be so large that it would raise questions about the US Treasury’s credit rating and the viability of the dollar, and the trillions of dollars in Interest Rate Swaps and other derivatives would come unglued. My Great-Grandfather Started This Business With One Simple Mission That We Abandoned Decades Ago. In 1896, 12-year-old Dietrich Konrad Mueller came through Ellis Island with 50 cents in his pocket and a belief in the American dream.
A decade later, in a Lower East Side storefront, he opened Mueller Dry Goods, the company he would operate for the next 48 years. Today, it's a Fortune 500 multinational corporation, and the same simple philosophy upon which my great-grandfather built it—quality, fairness, and a commitment to the customer—has absolutely nothing to do with how we conduct our business. In fact, my great-grandfather's ideals, and the high standards he believed to be the cornerstone of this company, literally never come up in our business meetings. Ever. Paul Krugman Is Tired Of You People. Dismal Jobs Reports Driven by Continued Cuts to Public Sector, say Analysts. The May jobs report released today by US Department of Labor was called 'disappointing' and 'dismal' by economists and analysts as the economy added just 69,000 jobs during the month and the official unemployment rate rose from 8.1 to 8.2 percent.
A sign directs job seekers during Los Angeles Mission's 11th annual Skid Row Career Fair on May 31, in Los Angeles. The May jobs report released today by US Department of Labor was called 'disappointing' and 'dismal' by economists and analysts as the economy added just 69,000 jobs during the month and the official unemployment rate rose from 8.1 to 8.2 percent. (AFP Photo/Kevork Djansezian) "Today’s disappointing employment report shows that the labor market remains far below full strength," Chad Stone, chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said in a statement. Stone said the report should be a caution to elected officials who have pressed for tightening unemployment insurance benefits for those out of work. Robert L. Obama Presided Over a Tax Revenue Drought, Not a Spending Binge. Bankers and Forgiveness. When homeowners have fallen behind in their mortgage payments, whether because of a job loss or because the interest rates just shot up, the bankers have responded coldly.
Paul Krugman’s Economic Blinders. Dimon's JPMorgan Chase: Why It's the Scandal of Our Time. The Onion - America's Finest News Source. How Wall Street Killed Financial Reform. Taibbi: Why You Should Care About JPMorgan Chase's Gambling Losses. JPMorgan Chase Fought Rule on Risky Trading. Jim Young/Reuters. The Greediness of Brain Drain. WSJ Columnist: Government Layoffs Making Unemployment Rate Much Worse. What minimum wage buys, then and now. Chomsky: "Jobs aren't coming back" - Occupy Wall Street. Healthcare's foreign invasion - Healthcare Reform.
Approximately 15 percent of all healthcare workers and 25 percent of all physicians in the United States were born and educated elsewhere. This means that 1.5 million healthcare jobs are “insourced,” occupied by foreign-born, foreign-trained workers brought into the United States on special visas earmarked for healthcare jobs. Dshort Featured Charts. Out of Balance. National Journal reports: Things are bad out in Real America - Great Recession. What America Pays In Taxes : Planet Money. See our earlier entries in this series: What America Sells To The World, What America Does For Work and What America Buys. Regulators to Ease a Rule on Derivatives Dealers. Benjamin Myers/ReutersMary L. Citigroup Shareholders Reject Executive Pay Plan. Legalizing Pot Would Raise More Revenue Than Buffett Rule. The Business of a Better World: Can a New Kind of Corporation Save Us and Our Economy? States of Depression. Cannibalize the Future. The Bottomless Pit.
Pink Slime Economics. Financers and Sex Trafficking. 3 Major American Banks Brace for Moody's Credit Downgrades. Inching Toward Energy Independence in America. 'Drill Baby Drill' Will Never Curb Gas Prices: Report. Wall Street Sees Big Profits In Renting Out Foreclosed Homes. A Brief History of Income Taxes - TurboTax& Tax Tips & Videos. - StumbleUpon. Stock Analysts Confused, Frightened By Boar Market. Desperate LightSquared claims 5th Amendment violation, demands new spectrum. Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names. Public Rebuke of Culture at Goldman Opens Debate. Subprime at the Car Lot. Why We Have to Go Back to a 40-Hour Work Week to Keep Our Sanity.
Outsourcing the Drug Industry. Is "All of the Above" the Right Strategy for U.S. Energy? A Q&A with Steven Chu. Will the Real Kevin Hassett, If There Is One, Please Stand Up? Magical Thinking About Tax Cuts. The Sugar Daddy recession - Salon — After Dark. Mom and Pop Investors Call It Quits. Krugman: For A Real Recovery, States Need More Federal Aid. How The 1 Percent And The 99 Percent Are Doing, In 1 Table : Planet Money. Taibbi: Bank of America is a giant raging hurricane of theft and fraud. States of Depression. McCaskill, Webb Introduce Wartime Contracting Legislation that Could Save Taxpayers Billions. Wall Street Bonuses: The Other Side Of The Story. Economic recovery: The overlooked data that reveal the economy is bouncing back. The Word - Change We Can Believe In. The Foreclosure-to-Rental Boondoggle. Foreclosure Crisis. Fed Shrugged Off Warnings, Let Banks Pay Shareholders Billions. One Out Of Every Ten Wall Street Employees Is A Psychopath, Say Researchers.
Ben & Jerry's Backs Occupy Wall Street Protesters. Obama Proposes Lowering Corporate Tax Rate. Dissent and the Politics of Control. Banks Colluding with Insurers to Rip Off Homeowners, Lawsuit Alleges. Business Insider. Sustainable capitalism: Blood, Gore and capitalism. Why Hasn’t Anyone Gone to Jail? Eric Cantor Unveils the GOP's Con JOBS Act. Why Booze Is Barely Taxed. The Best, Most Revealing Reporting on the Foreclosure Crisis. Stockblockers - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - 02/15. How Citibank Dumped Lousy Mortgages on the Government. Congress Will Auction Public Airwaves to Pay for Benefits. How Kamala Harris Finessed a Foreclosure Deal for California. How Much Stimulus Funding is Going to Your County?