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Europe debt crisis and jobs numbers to drive stocks

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

CNN - By Hibah Yousuf - May. 27 (News Report) - Memorial Day may mark the unofficial start to summer, but investors won't be getting any rest and relaxation during the coming week. Following a three-day weekend (U.S. markets are closed Monday for Memorial Day), uncertainty will continue to swirl over Europe, with the threat of Greece leaving the eurozone still looming.

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Hollande Ousts Sarkozy in French Presidential Election

Sun, 06 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Steven Erlanger, Nicola Clark - May. 06 (News Report) - François Hollande swept into office on Sunday, becoming the first Socialist to be elected president of France since François Mitterrand left office in 1995. Mr. Hollande’s campaign promised a kinder, gentler, more inclusive France, but his victory over President Nicolas Sarkozy will also be seen as a challenge to the German-dominated policy of economic austerity in the euro zone, which is suffering from recession and record unemployment.

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Austerity Is So Wrong!

Sun, 06 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Daily Beast - By Paul Krugman - May. 06 (Opinion) - In a new book, End This Depression Now!, Nobel Prize–winning economist Paul Krugman says the current economic problems can be fixed both more easily and more quickly than anyone imagines. But politicians’ desire to slash spending is deeply destructive, and he details why austerity is so appealing even to Very Serious People—and why it’s such a bad idea.

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Punk Economics: Lesson 3

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

YouTube - By David McWilliams - Apr. 01 (Opinion) - Irish Economist David McWilliams discusses the dangers of playing games with liquidity, in Lesson 3.

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Fair Game: W.T.O. and Barriers to Financial Change

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Gretchen Morgenson - Mar. 17 (Opinion) - The battle to remake the financial markets faces new obstacles in — of all places — the World Trade Organization. Even now, after all we’ve been through, something is still wrong with Wall Street. That’s the takeaway from the extraordinary — and extraordinarily public — resignation of Greg Smith from Goldman Sachs last week. His criticism of Goldman, made in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times, suggested that some of the business practices and inherent conflicts in the financial industry are as troubling today as they were before all of those taxpayer bailouts.

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As NYCHA Seeks Flexibility, Tenant Advocates ConcernedCityLimits.org

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

City Limits - Mar. 13 (News) - The city's public housing agency wants rules relaxed to allow creative budgeting. But advocates for residents want stronger assurances that financial flexibility won't come at the cost of tenant rights.

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Banks Repaid Fed Bailout With Other Fed Money: Government Report

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Mark Gongloff - Mar. 09 (News Report) - Though lots of people grumble about the government bailing out banks in the financial crisis, we have at least taken some comfort in the idea that the government has turned a profit on that bailout. Only problem is, that profit comes from taxpayer money -- money that was meant to spur banks to develop communities and help small businesses. Instead they've used it to develop and help themselves.

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Super Tuesday guide: Finding truth in the attacks

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

PolitiFact - By Becky Bowers - Mar. 04 (Fact Check) - As 10 states prepare to vote on Super Tuesday, here’s PolitiFact’s guide to the multimillion-dollar ad blitz. With the field down to four Republican contenders, campaigns and super PACs are attacking their opponents with hot-button allegations about supporting Planned Parenthood, Obamacare and even Nancy Pelosi that are designed to strike fear in the hearts of Republican voters. There's been some piling on. We've seen several examples where two (or more) candidates have made the same attack. The one candidate who hasn't been attacked much: Ron Paul. He's has been busy attacking others — but we didn’t find ads attacking him. ... >>More

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The Pledge: Grover Norquist's hold on the GOP

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

60 Minutes - By Steve Kroft - Nov. 22 (Special Report) - As head of Americans for Tax Reform since 1986, Grover Norquist has transformed a single issue - preventing tax hikes - into one of the key platforms of the Republican Party. As Steve Kroft reports, his biggest coup was getting more than 270 members of Congress, and nearly all of the 2012 Republican presidential primary candidates, to sign a pledge promising never to vote to raise taxes. But some opponents say the pledge may be hindering a solution to America's debt crisis.

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Panel Fails to Reach Deal on Plan for Deficit Reduction

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Jennifer Steinhauer, Robert Pear, Helene Cooper - Nov. 22 (News Report) - After one last bout of fitful but futile talks, Congressional negotiators conceded the obvious: that the joint Congressional committee charged with drafting a deficit reduction package would miss its deadline this week. But they did not quite give up the ghost of a chance that a solution might be found later.

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World financial markets tumble on news of debt supercommittee’s stalemate

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Neil Irwin - Nov. 21 (News Report) - World financial markets tumbled Monday, as there were no new signs of resolution to Europe’s intractable crisis and as the U.S. debt supercommittee failed to reach agreement on a deficit reduction plan. The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 245 points, or 2.1 percent and the broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was down 1.9 percent. Global markets were down even more, with the German Dax index off 3.4 percent and French and Spanish markets down by similar amounts.

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Obama administration quietly bracing for debt supercommittee failure

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Anne E. Kornblut - Nov. 16 (Special Report) - White House officials are quietly bracing for “supercommittee” failure, with advisers privately saying they are pessimistic that the 12-member Congressional panel will find a way to cut $1.2 trillion from the deficit as required. In public, however, the official administration stance is that failure is not an option. ...

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The Social Contract

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Paul Krugman - Sep. 23 (Opinion) - This week President Obama said the obvious: that wealthy Americans, many of whom pay remarkably little in taxes, should bear part of the cost of reducing the long-run budget deficit. And Republicans like Representative Paul Ryan responded with shrieks of “class warfare.” It was, of course, nothing of the sort. On the contrary, it’s people like Mr. Ryan, who want to exempt the very rich from bearing any of the burden of making our finances sustainable, who are waging class war.

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Super Committee Debt Solution: Get Rid of Energy Subsidies

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

U.S. News & World Report - Sep. 02 (News) -

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CBO: Economy Remains In 'Severe Slump'

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

NPR - By Eyder Peralta - Aug. 24 (News Report) - The Congressional Budget Office has just released the summer update of its Budget and Economic Outlook. The non-partisan government agency took in to account the recently enacted Budget Control Act, but not the recent market volatility. If you were looking for good economic news, this report is not it. Here's the bottom line as Director Douglas W. Elmendorf puts it in his blog: Although economic output began to expand again two years ago, the pace of the recovery has been slow, and the economy remains in a severe slump. Recent turmoil in financial markets in the United States and overseas threatens to prolong the slump. CBO expects that the recovery will continue but that real (inflation-adjusted) GDP will stay well below the economy's potential—a level that corresponds to a high rate of use of labor and capital—for several years. The AP reports that the agency reports the budget deficit will hit $1.28 trillion this year, which is down from the previous two years. Taking into account the deficit reduction package passed by Congress, however, that deficit will be reduced by $3.3 trillion over the next ten years.

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China currency bill could delay passage of free trade deals

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Hill - By Vicki Needham - Aug. 23 (News Analysis) - The contentious and potentially explosive issue of China's currency could slide into the spotlight again next month as lawmakers begin what is expected to be a difficult trade debate in Congress.

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As Biden Visits China, Author David Wise on "Tiger Trap: America’s Secret Spy War with China"

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Juan Gonzalez, Amy Goodman - Aug. 18 (News Report) - Vice President Joe Biden arrived in China yesterday to begin a five-day trip aimed at reassuring leaders there of the stability of the U.S. economy and to begin building a relationship with that country’s most likely next president, Xi Jinping. The visit to the largest foreign creditor to the United States falls right after the downgrade of the U.S. credit rating by Standard & Poor’s, and just days after the Financial Times reported that Pakistan gave Chinese officials access to the wreckage of the top-secret U.S. stealth helicopter that crashed in the compound of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad during the U.S. raid in May.

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Defending Obama's pragmatism

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

CNN - By Fareed Zakaria - Aug. 15 (Opinion) - Over the last week, liberal politicians and commentators took to the airwaves and op-ed pages to criticize the debt deal that Congress reached. But their ire was directed not at the Tea Party or even the Republicans but rather at Barack Obama, who they concluded had failed as a President because of his persistent tendency to compromise. This has been a running theme ever since Obama took office. I think that liberals need to grow up. As the New Republic's Jonathan Chait brilliantly points out, there is a recurring liberal fantasy that if only the President would give a stirring speech, he would sweep the country along with the sheer power of his poetry. In this view, writes Chait, "Every known impediment to the legislative process - special interest lobbying, the filibuster, macroeconomic conditions, not to mention certain settled beliefs of public opinion-are but tiny stick huts trembling in the face of the atomic bomb of the presidential speech."

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Debt supercommittee’s membership dominated by white men

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Felicia Sonmez - Aug. 14 (News) - With House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) announcement Thursday of her three appointees to the bipartisan debt “supercommittee,” the panel’s 12-member roster is now complete. It represents a broad range of ideological views, from House Republican Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling (Tex.) on the right to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) on the left. But the group’s membership is marked by a ...

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G.O.P. on Defensive as Analysts Question Party’s Fiscal Policy

Sat, 13 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

gainesville.com - By Jackie Calmes - Aug. 13 (News Report) - The boasts of Congressional Republicans about their cost-cutting victories are ringing hollow to some well-known economists, financial analysts and corporate leaders, including some Republicans, who are expressing increasing alarm over Washington’s new austerity and antitax orthodoxy

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America’s downgrade: Substandard & Poor

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Aug. 11 (Editorial) - It was a humbling moment for America, and the decision by Standard & Poor’s to strip the country of its triple-A credit rating on August 5th came at a particularly sensitive time. Furious Obama administration officials immediately attacked the ratings agency—and the criticisms increased on August 8th, the first trading day following S&P’s announcement, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted by 5.5%. Was S&P justified? This matters for the downgrader as well as the downgraded. The reputations of the ratings agencies are still stained by their gross overstating of the quality of mortgage-backed bonds before the credit crisis (see article).

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The Economy Is Doomed Says Charles R. Morris

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 09:01:10 -0700

The Daily Beast - By Charles R. Morris - Aug. 11 (Opinion) - Over the last few days, global markets have been surging and collapsing like a teeny-bopper’s hormones. The Monday swoon was precipitated by the downgrading of the U.S. credit rating by one of the major credit agencies, while the Tuesday resurrection was in reaction to Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke’s promise to keep interest rates near zero in perpetuity if necessary. Neither of those was a real event. Treasury risk premiums fell after the credit action, and American banks and corporations are already sitting on some $3 trillion in cash that they can’t spend. More free money won’t change anything. Gloom descended again on Wednesday, this time because of credit worries in Europe, which is at least a real problem. A deeper reason for the high market anxiety, however, is the sad state of financial governance in both Europe and the United States. The paralyzing standoff between the two major American parties was dramatized by the idiocies of the debt-ceiling debate. President Obama’s Monday speech only added to the nervousness by underscoring how far apart the parties were.

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Debt 'Super Committee' Nearly Complete, At 9 Members

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

NPR - Aug. 10 (News Report) - BILL CHAPPELL The new "Debt Supercommittee" created by the recent deficit ceiling deal now has 9 of its 12 members, as House Speaker John Boehner says Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas will co-chair the new committee, according to the AP. The panel's task will be to create a bipartisan plan for cutting the federal deficit by around $1.5 trillion. That money could come from a combination of spending cuts and raising revenue. If the panel fails to reach an agreement, automatic cuts would be made — and the automated cuts were crafted to be unpalatable to both of the major political parties.

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Globalization Has Role In This Double Whammy

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Simon Nixon - Aug. 10 (Opinion) - On the face of it, there's not much to link the London riots and the latest gyrations in global markets. The wave of violence and looting that has spread across the U.K. over the past few days has been mass criminality not a protest movement. And the global stock market rout was triggered by concerns over the euro zone, U.S. government debt and the global recovery rather than anything specific to the U.K. Indeed, the markets have singled out the U.K. as a haven, its debt now cheaper to insure than that of Germany. Even so, there's a link between the two phenomena—and it is an unsettling one. Both reflect the challenges of globalization. The creation of a rules-based multi-lateral trading system has been one of the greatest triumphs of the past 65 years. But the crash and the riots are evidence of the pressure this system is coming under from above and below.

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Nullifying the Future -- Tyranny of the Minority

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Op Ed News - By Robert S. Becker - Aug. 09 (Opinion) - The Tea Party, like the Civil War, dramatize and test our core value -- does the majority rule when a strident obstructionist minority gets in its way? I say No when 20% trumps 80%.

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