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rowth without the unifying backdrop of dollar based assets there would be an intensifying of rivalries and trade disputes posted by purple at 2 52 am 2 comments thursday january 29 2009 one consequence of the equity crash private foundations have drastically cut back on their grants and donations a local arts organization i work with had their annual allotment cut by 70 posted by purple at 1 03 am no comments wednesday january 28 2009 only a week but it looks like the obama administration is making some significant errors which may ultimately derail the success of his first term incrementalism as expressed by an 800 billion economic stimulus package will not help enough people get work compromise with a weak republican minority will not shield obama from blame if the stimulus fails he should just go all in if this is what he believes in and forget the republicans krugman writes whatever the explanation the obama plan just doesn t look adequate to the economy s need to be sure a third of a loaf is better than none but right now we seem to be facing two major economic gaps the gap between the economy s potential and its likely performance and the gap between mr obama s stern economic rhetoric and his somewhat disappointing economic plan on the flip side obama has discarded incrementalism in afghanistan troop strength is set to increase by 30 000 in the graveyard of empires with more probably coming later in conjunction with this are the repeated missile strikes into pakistan a good number of people are getting killed in these strikes with seemingly little operational damage being done to the leadership of the pashtun oriented resistance juan cole writes regarding pakistan if he thinks the drone attacks on fata are a painless way to signal to the world that he is no wimp he may find as lyndon johnson did that such military operations take on a momentum of their own and produce popular discontents that can prove deadly to the military mission posted by purple at 12 29 am no comments tuesday january 27 2009 prosperity is not just around the corner from david rosenberg chief economist for merrill lynch my sense is that many clients are totally underestimating the extent of the trauma that exists on the household balance sheet from this credit collapse and asset deflation said mr rosenberg in a report that came the same day as widespread layoff notices mr rosenberg said we now have 30 per cent idle capacity in the manufacturing sector which we ve seen only one other time in the past five decades that means that spare capacity in the economy is now so big that it would take six years of 4 per cent real gdp growth or alternatively three years of 5 per cent real growth just to get the economy back to full employment the market s rapturous celebration of a dip in housing inventory shows that too many believe prosperity is just around the corner it was the housing bubble which fueled what little economic growth there was from 2001 2007 the collapse of this bubble and the resulting loss of equity and jobs will leave the u s consumer deep in the hole for a long time the permanent scar will be a lack of confidence in an ever improving american standard of living we have had two spectacular bubbles crash in less than a decade and economies just don t bounce back from that in short order couple this with an erosion of the social safety net under the mantra of shared sacrifice and the u s consumer is going to become a lot more like their savings minded counterpart in east asia posted by purple at 2 08 am no comments sunday january 25 2009 the pressures for protectionism what is often missed during academic debate on the matter is that there is a substantial constituency in the u s that favors protectionism actually they would not even call their policy ideas protectionism but rather fair trade they include labor unions and a broad swath of domestic manufacturers who are under the umbrella of nam or national association of manufacturers the opinion piece depression is already here can be placed in the context of this constituency and outlines their arguments well although other aspects of the article are more speculative such as its analysis of the new deal and wage equity excerpts if president obama is not willing to take tough steps to redress the trade imbalance with china and reduce oil imports together the persian gulf oil exporters and china s sovereign wealth funds may be able to buy the new york stock exchange eight years from now americans outside those working for the new york banks that facilitate this sellout will find their best futures waiting on tables for middle east and chinese tourists the dollar is too strong against the chinese yuan japanese yen and other asian currencies the chinese government intervenes in foreign exchange markets to suppress the value of the yuan to gain competitive advantages for chinese exports and the yuan sets the pattern for other asian currencies similarly beijing subsidizes fuel prices and increasingly requires u s manufacturers to make products in china to sell there the choices for the new president are simple it s either recovery or depression fix the banks trade with china and energy policy or become america s nero posted by purple at 11 23 am no comments saturday january 24 2009 as goes california so goes the nation california s unemployment rate surged to 9 3 percent in december as employers cut 78 200 jobs pushing joblessness to a level not seen since 1994 the state employment development department said friday economically we re in uncharted waters haveman said we haven t seen anything like this certainly since the end of world war ii and maybe since the great depression besides being ground zero for the housing bubble california is essentially ungovernable now tax raises require a 2 3 vote and state finances are tied up in a number of proposition measures that were passed by referendum posted by purple at 8 06 pm no comments friday january 23 2009 plans to use military during civil unrest persistent stories about deploying the u s military on american soil if i didn t know better i would say it almost feels like the rollout of a product or floating an idea to get the public s reaction the stories have been published or based in the border regions of the south west and often center around mexico s spiraling drug war and its potential for spillover yet their origin an army college report titled known unknowns places a military deployment in the context of civil unrest that sounds more like protests or rioting not crime incidentally crime in u s is way down now on a per capita basis from the early 1990 s ap feds plan surge if mexican drug war spills over if mexican drug violence spills across the u s border homeland security officials say they have a contingency plan to assist border areas that includes bringing in the military it s a common sense extension of our continued work with our state local and tribal partners in securing the southwest border dhs spokeswoman amy kudwa said friday link el paso times unrest caused by bad economy may require military action report says a u s army war college report warns an economic crisis in the united states could lead to massive civil unrest and the need to call on the military to restore order retired army lt col nathan freir wrote the report known unknowns unconventional strategic shocks in defense strategy development which the army think tank in carlisle pa recently released link arizona business times ariz police say they are prepared as war college warns military must prep for unrest imf warns of economic riots nick dranias director of constitutional government at the libertarian goldwater institute said a declaration of marital law would be an extraordinary event and give military control over civilian authorities and institutions dranias said the posse comitatus act restricts the u s military s role in domestic law enforcement but he points to a 1994 u s defense department directive dodd 3025 he says allows military commanders to take emergency actions in domestic situations to save lives prevent suffering or mitigate great property damage link posted by purple at 1 23 am no comments thursday january 22 2009 yuan and dollar obama has long signaled his unhappiness with the valuation of the yuan relative to the dollar and his treasury nominee further emphasized that today timothy geithner president barack obama s nominee for treasury secretary said the new u s administration believes china is manipulating its currency as i wrote in an earlier post obama s political power base is different than other recent presidents being geographically located in the upper midwest and chicago economically this means agriculture domestic manufacturing and unions protectionism does not have a negative connotation in these circles it does seem there is a power struggle among the political class in regards to the american china relationship an editorial by the war criminal kissinger represents the view that the sino american relationship needs to be taken to a new level however if kissinger is writing editorials it indicates that he is on the outside looking in if international trade curtails substantially i think it s quite likely that china will attempt to establish a regional trading bloc with the yuan as the dominant currency it seems to be starting this process with the asean countries who surround a strategic choke point to the indian ocean kissinger mentions this in his editorial a frustrated china may take another look at an exclusive regional asian structure for which the nucleus already exists in the asean plus three concept the unwinding of the current over leveraged unbalanced model means that many countries will be looking twice at globalization posted by purple at 6 55 am no comments wednesday january 21 2009 no one could have known about the housing bubble and the over leveraged u s consumer the coming financial tsunami by george mullen june 9 2005 world economies including that of the united states have been built not only on a house of cards but on a foundation of beach sand as well the tide which had been going out for some time convinced us of the soundness of our financial structure and the brilliance of our government stewardship and individual decisions however the tide is now coming in again via the federal reserve and we are failing to grasp the magnitude of the danger before us it is a tsunami according to the national association of realtors 36 percent of all new homes purchased in 2004 were secondary homes either for investment 23 percent or vacation 13 percent this is evidence of rampant speculation i knew many middle class people in california that were buying houses as investments using cheap credit and the equity on their primary residence over the three years of this supposed economic recovery wages have increased a meager 4 percent a startling 10 percentage points behind the 14 percent average wage gain of the five preceding cyclical recoveries by february 2005 americans were carrying a record 803 billion in revolving credit card debt up 40 billion in the past year alone note debt levels typically do not increase in economic recovery periods long term wage stagnation is one of the key factors to this unwinding the only way to grow an economy with stagnant wages is to make credit cheap and accessible but eventually if the money is not paid back there will be a period of liquidation to cleanse the system this article is still one of the best primers for explaining the housing collapse and its domino effect on an over leveraged consumer and economy not a surprise that it was written from san diego which was probably the first housing market to peak and begin crashing posted by purple at 6 53 pm no comments tuesday january 20 2009 clean up crew for the inauguration after the party for those serving the general public however this author found that poverty wage day labor is being used to clean up the massive outdoor events the job description recruiting for this work seen through the window of a labor ready temporary staffing office in richmond virginia is worth quoting in full time to be in branch will know friday probably 5 am how long job lasts with travel time 15 hours plus please be aware travel time is not paid pay 7 55 an hour job duties trash pickup horse manure pickup no joke dress attire must dress warm gloves hats scarves extra liners jackets you will not be able to go if you don t dress warm long hours tedious work outside in freezing weather high security no bags allowed please be aware i have actually worked for the above organization but thankfully not for long in my experience they were bottom of the barrel for temp agencies in terms of wages conditions and how the workers were treated posted by purple at 3 11 pm monday january 19 2009 the new president the inauguration of obama is a milestone in the history of the united states one does feel a relaxing of racial tensions and an enthusiasm for the country and the political process that has been absent for the last number of years his presidency gives a measure of esteem and respect to people of oppressed cultures around the world a world even more divided by skin color than the united states but political popularity can turn quickly it was stunning to watch schwarzenegger s endorsed ballet propositions go down to defeat two years after his successful recall of grey davis and george w bush had a 75 approval rating for what seemed like a year only to see it fall to the lowest rating upon leaving office of any u s president leaving the pageantry of the next few weeks aside it is interesting to think about what obama s policies in the white house will be as he works with the democratic congress though as a politician he is brilliant in terms of policy obama is a fairly mainstream centrist liberal democrat chicago is the source of his political upbringing and a such he has a different power base than recent presidents chicago is a union town and the upper midwest in general is built around domestic manufacturing and agriculture unions and domestic manufacturing are pushing for protectionism against china and i expect obama will move in that direction in his first year i don t think just jawboning will be the approach of this administration rep sander levin a michigan democrat who chairs a key trade subcommittee in the house of representatives told reporters i think it will look at all options including a wto case including working through the imf including looking at present legislation levin said protectionism will fit the mood of the u s by the time late 2009 rolls around and obama will be hard for foreign leaders to demagogue but it does bring the risk of an international backlash as the global economy contracts and countries feel their backs against the wall on the issue of afghanistan obama has talked himself into a corner despite plans to send up to 30 0...
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