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In addition to the photo-ops, a good deal of Geithner’s time is likely to focus on discussing the “exit strategy.” A crisis is too good an opportunity to miss. Unfortunately, U.S. policies have so far sorely lacked in reform to promote a more sustainable future. Rather than encourage an economy more focused on savings and investments, there was no incentive for businesses to invest in the so-called stimulus bill. On the contrary, all efforts were aimed at getting consumers to keep up their borrowing. The U.S. savings rate is slowly moving upward, but more out of consumer desperation than a new vision for a more prosperous future being embraced. This may bode badly for a sustainable recovery in the U.S.
For China, the stakes are high, but China’s massive reserves give the country room to maneuver. In particular, China has to decide whether to try to build its recovery on a fragile U.S. consumer or to find ways to achieve a more balanced economy. The former implies more of the same: buying Treasuries, finding ways to jumpstart exports, keeping the yuan pegged to the dollar. There are many problems with that policy, including:
Pity the neighborhood loan shark. The credit-card companies have stolen his customers by taking a softer approach to charging outrageous interest rates. During the subprime lending boom, mortgage banks shouldered into shark territory, too. Loan sharks are called mobsters. Thieving legitimate lenders are called capitalists -- free to impose any terms short of kneecapping on their troubled borrowers. Washington treated capitalist sharks as role models and beloved campaign contributors -- that is, until the economy collapsed and debtors emitted a collective scream.
Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates today renewed his appeal to the world's billionaires to give up their fortunes to charitable causes.
But in Washington, the software giant’s chief executive, Steve Ballmer, made it clear that the company’s charitable views don’t extend to paying what it considers unfair U.S. tax rates: Ballmer threatened to move more jobs overseas if President Obama prevails with his proposal to end tax breaks on foreign earnings.
It was touted as an "all access" day in the life of the President but at 7:15 minutes into Part 1 Larry Summers and a man who I believe is Austan Goolsbee come into the Oval Office for a call with "the Germans". Summers is obviously on edge and shuts down the cameras when he begins to discuss the problem.
Summers: "Life has changed..ahh..since the briefing…ahh”
Obama: "For the better or for the worse?"
Goolsbee: "Net-net for the better…wouldn’t you say Larry?" (Goolsbee speaks loudly and unconvincingly for the cameras.)
Summers: “(nervous laugh)..there’s elements of both. The Germans...actually we should stop (the cameras) here."
The cameras and staff are quickly “ushered out” of the Oval Office.
Every first Friday of the month we look at the headline numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: so many jobs were added or lost last month; thus, we deduce the economy to be growing or declining. But this is less than half of the story; we rarely- if ever- discuss what kind of jobs are involved. I believe this to be superficial analysis and highly misleading.
Sometimes I feel like our Pax Americana is ablaze and we are all gathered round, poking the fire with our marshmallow sticks and laughing, telling each other camp stories.
"Most medical debtors were well-educated, owned homes and had middle-class occupations."
The researchers, whose work was paid for by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said the share of bankruptcies that could be blamed on medical problems rose by 50 percent from 2001 to 2007.
"Unless you're Warren Buffett, your family is just one serious illness away from bankruptcy"
Discussion of the 50% Retracement Rule,
potential future price levels, time studies, key dates, Fibonacci, Gann, Astro numbers, Robert Rhea's Great Depression analysis.
"April’s reading was revised to show a reduction of 545,000 workers, up from a previous estimate of 491,000."
Is an 11% month over month change in an employment number a revision or a rewrite? The ADP report is supposed to be based on actual reports from private industry. This pervasive pattern of 'good numbers' that result in stock market rallies and the massaging of public opinion, only to be replaced by downward revisions thirty days later, with little notice or quote, is cynical manipulation of the media at best, and a dangerous slide into social engineering by an increasing distortion of 'reality' at worst. If you have not read the novel or seen the movie lately, 1984 is worth a look.
I have an unfortunate sense that the "green shoots" in the economy that everyone is talking about are nothing but dandelions. Sure, forcing $1 trillion of taxpayer money—in direct capital, guarantees, and diminished cost of borrowing—into the banking sector has permitted the major banks to claim solvency for the moment. Yet we should not forget that this solvency has come not through a much needed deleveraging of the banking sector but rather from a massive transfer of the obligations of private banks to the public, with the debt accruing to future generations. And overall loan quality at U.S. banks is still the worst in 25 years and deteriorating at the fastest pace ever.
“Pirates?” the old salt snorted. “Pirates won’t kill the shipping business. Pirates are a joke.” Skip to next paragraph Multimedia Just Don't Mention PiratesInteractive Feature Just Don't Mention Pirates Related More Articles in This Series He sipped his coffee bitterly and glanced without compassion at his fellow ancient mariners. “You want to know what killed the shipping business, I’ll tell you what killed the shipping business. Capitalists,” he said. The buccaneers of the Somali coast were making headlines from Mogadishu to the Mosholu Parkway, but at the Seafarers’ Club, a haunt for aging sailors near the South Street Seaport, it was understood that the demise of merchant shipping had little to do with African gangs in speedboats.
“Look around this room,” he said. “There’s nothing left. Seamen are passé. It’s the end of an era. The industry is dead.”
