John on September 6, 2010
Funny, I thought Krugman was against wars of choice. Apparently not. In today’s column, Krugman finally lets us know just how much stimulus was needed: From an economic point of view World War II was, above all, a burst of deficit-financed government spending, on a scale that would never have been approved otherwise. Over the course of the war the federal government borrowed an amount equal to roughly twice the [...]
John on September 4, 2010
Remember when Obama said this: He was very clear about this “We are not going to meddle in GM’s decisions…we’re not in the business of running a car company…we’re not getting involved in day to day management.” Only that wasn’t true. According to Car Czar Brett Rattner, whose new book the Detroit News got an advance copy of, the administration did get involved in at least one major GM decision: [...]
John on August 30, 2010
No teleprompter in sight and this guy lays out the case for dealing with our debt with passion, intelligence and conviction. This is the guy we need leading the party into 2012 and beyond: Am I on the Christie bandwagon? Damn right I am.
John on August 30, 2010
USA Today notes that welfare expenditures are rising steeply: More than 50 million Americans are on Medicaid, the federal-state program aimed principally at the poor, a survey of state data by USA TODAY shows. That’s up at least 17% since the recession began in December 2007… More than 40 million people get food stamps, an increase of nearly 50% during the economic downturn, according to government data through May. The [...]
John on August 27, 2010
The outlook is grim: After some improvement in the data over the spring and early summer, the recent news is describing an economy growing below 2%. While technically not a double-dip recession, the recovery could be so weak it will feel like another downturn… The new twist is that Wednesday’s data suggest the cloudy outlook is curtailing spending on business equipment. New orders for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft plunged [...]
John on August 25, 2010
Liberals are concerned about cuts to social security. So some are openly seeking better talking points to defend the program (they should start a list serv or something). In fact, a chain of concerned lefties led me to Krugman’s post on this topic: Ezra Klein led me to this re-post by Kevin Drum, which led me to the Daily Howler which led back to Paul Krugman. Here’s the core of [...]
John on August 25, 2010
The gravestone for “recovery summer”: We need someone besides the federal government to put people back to work. HT: Daily Caller
John on August 20, 2010
Close observers have seen this coming for several weeks. Shorebank was so bad off that it was not eligible for $75 million in taxpayer bailouts. Instead, it the same list of financial titans who had committed to help it are going ahead with a plan to buy the assets for a renamed entity under the current leadership: The new management of the bank, led by former First Chicago Corp. senior [...]
John on August 19, 2010
This post is essentially a revision of one that Ace did yesterday. I’m stealing his idea because it involves a couple of video clips that Morgen created for VS, one of which Ace used and one he left out which seems even more pertinent. Here’s Barney Frank on circa 2005 lecturing on the “excessive worry” about a housing bubble: Next, here’s Barney in 2006 admitting that lax regulatory policy towards [...]
John on August 8, 2010
In his last column, Krugman leveled a particularly nasty shot at Paul Ryan, calling him a flimflam artist. The response has not been very good, even from usually friendly quarters: I don’t think Ryan is a charlatan or a flim-flam artist. More to the point, I think he’s playing an important role, and one I’m happy to try and help him play: The worlds of liberals and conservatives are increasingly [...]
John on June 23, 2010
This is just pathetic. Republicans in Congress pushed for an amendment to the financial services bill and won: An amendment offered by Rep. Judy Biggert, R-Hinsdale, requires the inspector general of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to report by October 1 on “the influence of political pressure” by any employee or appointee of the executive branch related to private-sector assistance for any financial institution ordered to stop unsafe or unsound [...]
John on June 23, 2010
Actually, this is from two days ago, but I just saw it. Matt Yglesias endorses the idea of a government issue credit card for every American. He quotes Steve Waldmann suggesting: Every adult would be offered a Treasury Express card, which would have, say, a $1000 limit. Balances would be payable in full monthly. The only penalty for nonpayment would be denial of access of further credit, both by the [...]
John on June 21, 2010
If you read my reaction last week, this will sound familiar: Obama has made vilification of oil and the oil industry a rhetorical mainstay. This is intellectually shallow, if politically understandable. “Clean energy” won’t displace oil or achieve huge reductions in greenhouse gas emissions — for example, the 83 percent cut by 2050 from 2005 levels included in last year’s House climate change legislation. Barring major technological advances (say, low-cost [...]
John on June 9, 2010
Over at Ace’s, Purple Avenger notes this Market Watch commentary on the recent jobs numbers: “The big news is that we have a job loss of about 200,000 coming in June,” says Trim Tabs’ Madeline Schnapp, “and the market isn’t ready for it.”… From May 2009 to May 2010, the U.S. “civilian non-institutional population” of prime working age — 20 to 64 — expanded by one and a half million, [...]
John on May 26, 2010
Well, Obama has his Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico and now he has his Terry Schiavo case of massive federal intervention as well: Executives at several of the banks told FOX Business they will not give any additional bailout money, meaning that if the funding falls short the U.S. taxpayer may be asked to make up the difference once again. Meanwhile, officials at several of the banks that joined [...]
John on May 25, 2010
You have to read between the lines a bit, but only a bit: While a severe recession certainly played a role, an examination of ShoreBank’s financial statements and interviews with former employees and analysts show that ShoreBank brought many troubles on itself. An ill-timed, overly aggressive expansion at the height of the credit bubble, a headlong push into risky markets on Chicago’s West Side and to the inner city of [...]
John on May 21, 2010
Recall that the whole point of raising $125 million from Citigroup, JP Morgan, B of A, GE, etc. was to make ShoreBank eligible for $75 million in TARP bailout funds. But don’t forget, ShoreBank already received $35 million in federal bailout money last year, just weeks before it was given a cease and desist by Treasury. The obvious question to ask is why are we throwing good money after bad [...]
John on May 20, 2010
There is now a demand by congressional republicans for a probe into the mysterious survival of Shorebank. The letter they sent to the President yesterday asks “why did government-supported Wall Street banks decide to save ShoreBank rather than the numerous others [failing banks] that faced a capital shortage?” The answer, as I’ve previously noted, is that ShoreBank is politically connected to both Bill and Hillary Clinton and Michelle and Barack [...]
John on May 19, 2010
If you need background, it’s here and here. Here’s the latest development: Two top Republicans on the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, including U.S. Rep. Judy Biggert, R-Hinsdale, wrote a letter to President Barack Obama demanding records pertaining to any administration involvement in the $140-million Wall Street bailout of ShoreBank Corp. “Some believe that ShoreBank was really saved because of an assumption that high-ranking officials in the Obama administration favored [...]
John on May 18, 2010
A couple days ago I wrote a summary of the strange history of ShoreBank, a small but politically connected bank in Chicago. At the time, the President of Goldman Sachs had suddenly decided to make calls to insure it survived. Well, today GE announced a $20 billion commitment to ShoreBank which puts them over the threshold and makes the bank eligible for a further $75 billion in government bailout money: [...]
