» Greece’s Collapse Explained in a Single Picture - Big Government. Wall Street’s resurgent prosperity frustrates its claims, and Obama’s. The largest banks are larger than they were when Obama took office and are nearing the level of profits they were making before the depths of the financial crisis in 2008, according to government data. Wall Street firms — independent companies and the securities-trading arms of banks — are doing even better. They earned more in the first 21/2 years of the Obama administration than they did during the eight years of the George W. Bush administration, industry data show. (See data in an Excel file here.) Behind this turnaround, in significant measure, are government policies that helped the financial sector avert collapse and then gave financial firms huge benefits on the path to recovery.
Stabilizing the financial system was considered necessary to prevent an even deeper economic recession. Neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration, for instance, compelled banks to increase lending to consumers, known as “prime borrowers.” Federal assistance Banks’ profits up. » G20 to EU: Sorry, You’re on Your Own - Big Government. Smoking-Gun Document Ties Policy To Housing Crisis - Latest Headlines. US consumer confidence hits three-decade low. Markets heading to new danger zone: Zoellick. What is Economic Terrorism and is Labor Radical Stephen Lerner Guilty of it? | The Blaze. Thanks to Stephen Lerner’s detailed plan to bring down the U.S. economy by crippling the banks and causing the stock market to crash–so that the socialist utopia known as wealth distribution can ensue–”economic terrorism” has become the buzz-term among conservatives bloggers and talking heads at the moment, with people like Rush Limbaugh asking: “Is this not a form of terrorism this guy is preaching?”
The term “economic terrorism” is even gaining some traction on Capitol Hill. As we reported yesterday, Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah sent a letter to Eric Holder, asking the justice department to investigate Lerner. Chaffetz wrote, “The escalation of Mr. Lerner’s threats would clearly constitute domestic terrorism and pose substantial harm to the American people and the economy.” But what is economic terrorism–and whatever it is, did Lerner in fact engage in it or incite it by saying the below? In his speech, Lerner discusses causing “a new financial crisis.”
The Legal Question Lerner vs. Stansberry's Investment Advisory. Geithner says Congress must raise debt limit. Russia and China Ditch U.S. Dollar for Bilateral Trade | The Blaze. China and Russia have said they are renouncing the U.S. dollar and will instead use domestic currency in bilateral trade, the International Business Times reports.
The move comes in an attempt to “protect” their economies. The IBT reports: “We agreed to expand the possibilities for application of national currencies during trade and economic contacts,” said Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin after holding talks with the Chinese premier Wen Jiabao.However, the move is not aimed at challenging the dollar but to protect their economies, as the countries started exploring other options in the wake of the global financial crisis.With Russian ruble already trading on the Chinese exchange, yuan trade in Moscow is expected to begin in early December.The bilateral trade between the two countries is estimated to reach above $50 billion by the end of 2010, according to the Russian government.
A major chunk of the trade is transacted in US dollars currently. WRAPUP 2-China raises RRR again as inflation fight intensifies.
» Government: Destroying Your Wealth a Trillion Dollars at a Tim. Regulators Push for Global Rule on Bank Capital - DealBook Blog. America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution. As over-leveraged investment houses began to fail in September 2008, the leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties, of major corporations, and opinion leaders stretching from the National Review magazine (and the Wall Street Journal) on the right to the Nation magazine on the left, agreed that spending some $700 billion to buy the investors' "toxic assets" was the only alternative to the U.S. economy's "systemic collapse. " In this, President George W. Bush and his would-be Republican successor John McCain agreed with the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama.
Many, if not most, people around them also agreed upon the eventual commitment of some 10 trillion nonexistent dollars in ways unprecedented in America. They explained neither the difference between the assets' nominal and real values, nor precisely why letting the market find the latter would collapse America. The public objected immediately, by margins of three or four to one. The Political Divide The Ruling Class The Faith. American Thinker: The CBO Warns the Nation; Is Anybody Listening? Warning signs are everywhere -- most of them carefully phrased and nuanced, but warnings, nevertheless. Greece and, closer to home, California are painful reminders of what could happen.
CNBC is reporting that the Dow is repeating patterns that prevailed just before the Great Depression. The U.S. workforce suffered one its sharpest declines ever -- a drop of 652,000 -- in June. Economists claim that "wages are flirting with deflation. " It's hard to find good news on the financial front. Now, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just released its "Long-Term Budget Outlook" to confirm what people already feared: The national debt is devastating for the future of America. To compound the alarm, the CBO admits to understating the severity of the problem because its report does not include the negative impact that "substantial amounts of additional federal debt" would have on other aspects of the nation's economy.
We've been warned; is anybody listening? Nile Gardiner, a D.C. American Thinker: Is the Federal Reserve Destroying the Dollar? If you think our economy is in bad shape now, just wait. To be sure, economic prospects for jobs and growth already are bleak, and the Obama administration has increased the national debt in less than two years from over $10.632 trillion in January 2009 to $13.561 trillion in September 2010, resulting in a record 30% increase in public debt. But fear not. Some of our brightest leaders have got the perfect solution to all these problems: Charles Evans, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, called for the Fed to do more to charge up the economy, including a new program of U.S.
Treasury bond purchases and possibly a declaration that it wants inflation to rise for a time beyond its informal 2% target. ...The Fed is now considering whether to add to its $2.3-trillion portfolio of securities and loans by ramping up purchases of U.S. The most probable outcome will be to ignite inflation. If you are holding a ten-year U.S. So what would M3 be today? What is the Fed thinking? ... » Economic Troubles and the Growth of Government - Big Governmen. European Central Bank’s Report Issues Warning. » Bait and Switch: Raising the National Deficit by Stealth - Big. American Thinker: The Truth about the Unemployment Rate in Ameri. Changes in the unemployment rate are driven by interaction of job destruction, which consists of job losses through voluntary and involuntary job termination and job creation resulting in the hiring of employees.
This interplay of job destruction and job creation drives the changes and direction of the unemployment rate. James Sherk at the Heritage Institute points out in his latest article that job losses in the current recession are not as severe as they were during the recession in 2001. The reason the unemployment rate is so much higher in the current recession is due to the lack of job creation. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics JOLT (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) data, not only are private sector job losses now at a level lower than in the 2001, but job creation is 20% lower since the recession trough of 2001.
Job creation is reflected in the JOLT statistics as hires. Government, including federal, state, and local from 2001 to April 2010. American Thinker: America's Predicament. America's public debt recently exceeded 13 trillion. This is more than 90 percent of the country's GDP. Public debts of more than 60 percent of GDP are considered unhealthy. Public debts above 90 percent of GDP cause severe disruptions in the country's financial framework and the economy at large. According to the Obama administration, America's public debt will exceed 100 percent of GDP in the next fiscal year. History shows that most countries whose debt exceeds this mark are rarely able to control it. This level of indebtedness usually leads to currency debasement. There are a few historical examples whereby countries were able to contain debts of more than 100 percent of GDP. America's debt, on the other hand, is a result of decades of structural deficits.
Our government is like a drug addict who cannot quit because the dope is too easy to get. It has long been impossible to cut anything in Washington. Many people thought Barack Obama would save America from its troubles.