The New Bailout

[tw]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Holy crap. My great great great grand kids will be paying this off.

Where were you when George Jr was creating these problems? Where were you when the 'Saddam has WMD' myths were being promoted using lies and wild speculation?

Deja Vue Nam. Those Nixon lies in 1968 and 1970 caused massive expenses and the resulting recession in the late 1970s.

Discussed previously were Kennedy tax cuts as proof that tax cuts cure economic problems. Then one who constantly first needs facts noted the Kennedy tax cuts then resulted in economic downturn many years later.

Deja vue. George Jr's welfare to the rich and corporate tax cuts. Time to pay for money games as economics now takes revenge.

Again, who kept posting these warnings more than four years ago?

Let's see. Mission Accomplished would only cost $2billion and be paid for by Iraqi oil. What was reality back then? Which kind of thinker saw a $400billion number? On 22 Mar 2004:
France did something right for once!
Due to further extremist mismanagement ("America does not do nation building"), even that number was too small. Mission Accomplished alone is $1trillion (and still bin Laden runs free).

Or from the Economist of 22 Jun 2002:
Government Debts grow
Economic distress created by George Jr's political agenda was obvious how long ago?

Those were the days you stood up for America - opposed the political agenda. Saw through extremist's myths. Economics is now taking revenge for economics stimulus created by money games. Welcome to the 'Deja Vue' lessons of Nam. So many ignored them to promote a political agenda - and the resulting debts. We knew this problem was looming how long ago?
22 Jun 2002?
22 Mar 2004?

Now we must refight an Afghanistan war all over again - because extremists said, "Americans don't do nation building". More debts directly traceable to presidental mismanagement in the early 2000s.

Economists said it. Obama also confirmed it. We will be paying for economic mismanagement for the next ten years. Amazing how a budget surplus by Clinton could turn into massive economic destruction when an MBA trained mental midget, as front man for wackos extremist, was in charge.

[classicman]

Only if you use today's dollars

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by classicman

Only if you use today's dollars

So what are you saying, today's dollars are worth less?

[classicman]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The FBI and other U.S. agencies are working to prevent fraud and corruption related to government bailout money and the economic stimulus package, in what could be the "next wave" of cases in the financial crisis, FBI Director Robert Mueller said on Tuesday.

Mueller said in a speech to the Economic Club of New York that the FBI, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the inspector general of the Troubled Asset Relief Program were working to track where federal money is going.

"With billions of dollars at stake -- from the purchase of troubled assets to improvements in infrastructure, healthcare, energy and education -- even a small percentage of fraud would result in substantial taxpayer losses," Mueller said.

Mueller added: "We and our counterparts in other agencies are working to prevent what has the potential to be the next wave of cases: fraud and corruption related to the TARP funds and the stimulus package."

He also said the agency was shifting resources in New York to combat white-collar crime.

Mueller told the luncheon gathering that the agency had 1,300 securities fraud cases, including many Ponzi schemes. The FBI was investigating more than 580 corporate fraud cases, he said.

This should keep them busy for awhile.

[Undertoad]

Ain't working yet and neither am I

[TheMercenary]

The May Unemployment Numbers are Here, and Worse Than Predicted June 5, 2009
Posted by geoff in News.
465 comments
While I was waiting for May’s numbers to be released I did a quick Google News search on “unemployment.” Here is the first set of entries that popped up:

Pittsburgh unemployment rate falls to 6.9 percent Bizjournals.com - Unemployment in the Pittsburgh area inched down in April to 6.9 percent…
US Economy: Jobless Claims Fall, Productivity Rises Bloomberg
US jobless claims fall again, productivity rises Reuters
Jobless claims are down, but work remains scarce AP

You get the feeling that there’s a little pre-spin effort afoot? I mean, why put up an article on April’s unemployment on the day that May’s numbers come out? And while jobless claims did fall, interpreting that information without the unemployment rate is very difficult.

In any case, here is the new number for May: 9.4%, which is 0.2% higher than we had shown in the chart from a few days ago:*


Oh dear. And I’m serious – I expected the numbers to flatten out like it looked like they were going to a few days ago. This trend is terrible – the unemployment rate change was 60% higher than what was predicted, and is a larger increase than from March to April.

Maybe we’d better just keep focusing on those jobless claims.

*As always, this chart was constructed by overlaying the actual economic data on top of the chart made by Obama’s economic team to market his stimulus plan.

**Here are some other posts on the subject:

The predicted numbers for May from a few days ago, with some thoughts on why unemployment is worse than expected even without the stimulus package (and a hearty discussion in the comments on proper graphing)
A look at the stimulus package spending – how late it is, and how little thus far has been devoted to job creation (it’s basically gone to pay off states’ social services debts)
The April numbers
The original post on the subject, noting that criticisms of the stimulus package may not have been motivated by racism after all.

http://michaelscomments.wordpress.com/

[ZenGum]

What exactly is a "jobless claim"?

Is it where someone visits social security and says, I've just been fired?
Or is it a regular request for unemployment money by someone who has been out of work for months?

[xoxoxoBruce]

They are talking about new claims at state unemployment offices. Nothing to do with social security.

[ZenGum]

Thanks for the clarification.
So, the "good" news is, slightly fewer people lost their jobs this month than last month. Huzzah.

Down under, somehow our GDP just grew 0.4 in the second quarter, and total jobs have increased.
Our currency falling off a cliff probably helped by stimulating exports, as did the gubmint giving everyone a bucket of money and telling them to go spend it.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Australia is one of the very few countries that are almost immune to this recession.
The new unemployment claims dropped slightly, but most of those people laid off in the last five months are still unemployed. It will probably be another year or more before the economy can recover enough to start putting a significant dent in unemployment numbers.

[ZenGum]

Here is the Aussie dollar, versus the yen, for the last three years (the only rate I have ready to hand). It has done much the same against all other currencies.



I exchanged my yen for Aussies on Obama's inauguration day, figuring if anything was going to turn it around it would be that. That day was the third of those three very low spikes you see, the last before the recent recovery. !

I guess that makes me one of the idle rich parasites exploiting fluctuations in exchange values without adding any real value. Oh well, peel me a grape,

[classicman]

I heard an interview this morning with Elizabeth Warren, Chair of the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel. She was discussing how the legislation was specifically written "ambiguously" so that if/when the banks pay back the money we, the taxpayers have no right to the money. In fact, according to her, the administration has the right to utilize that money however they see fit. In short we may (read probably) will never actually get paid back.

Furthermore, she said that she has been requesting more information on the banks and the stress tests. She cannot perform the functions of the position which they empowered her with.
Paraphrasing... I would just like them to be more open, transparent and forthcoming with the information from the stress tests so that we (an independent body) can look at how things are and may be affected by different economic indicators..."

[Undertoad]

starting to turn

[ZenGum]

Oh dear.


Well, the good news is, the speed of the increase seems to have decreased slightly. Oh joy. May just be a statistical blip, though.

[skysidhe]

The states are balancing their budgets. Maybe that is the reason for the spike?

Well I know in my state they are balancing the budget and much of it is being laid on the sholders of those rich state employees.
*cough cough*