That's a very good point, although I am kind of amused that Mr. unlimited migration (which represses wages and decimates employment law) would point out that one of the last manufacturing industries, aircraft is not a target to be captured by China.
What I get out of this article is it has become very obvious that the US needs a national strategy based on domestic national economic interests.
Sen. Bernie Sanders has done a few speeches on the too big to fail argument and Spitzer is echoing those truths.
I certainly agree it's absurd to pour more money into a financial sector which has literally demanded trade policy, deregulation that has gotten us into this mess in the first place for it's obvious that are just going along as business as usual, but with taxpayer money.
I'm kind of glad to see Spitzer writing a column. He was an idiot in my view on labor economics and also obviously had a small little character flaw but he's smart as well and knows corporate crime, corruption inside and out (now just a little more inside than we thought!). ;)
Which was- at the rate we're going, we're not going to see that make any change other than to delay the inevitable.
Or as David Suzuki put it in that article:
"The economy is not a force of nature, some kind of immutable, infallible entity. We created it, and when cracks appear, it makes no sense to simply shovel on more money to keep it going. Because it’s a human invention, an economy is something we should be able to fix – but if we can’t, we should toss it out and replace it with something better."
I agree with you that we should delay the inevitable to give the new admin a prayer's chance, but the new admin should *also* be looking at worst case contingencies of having to completely re-engineer the economy to survive.
We COULD quickly get trade treaty modifications with a 90-day ban on imports and exports, scaring the world silly with the idea of cutting off America's consumers from Chinese factories and giving third world farmers a reason to actually plant this spring as they would need to actually rely on their own internal food sources for once.
We COULD quickly nationalize the big three automakers, then retool to produce generator trailers & Michelin Active Wheel drive trains/batteries on all the current body models, which would double or triple fuel efficiency in under three months, while keeping people employed. I guarantee you that in America's market at least, a 80MPG Hummer will beat a 50 mpg Prius, and the technology to do so is as simple as replacing 10 parts in the existing assembly line.
We COULD start a national WPA/CCC like program to suck up a million or so unemployed people to give government-sponsored "ambient energy footprint" renovation to every building owner in the country over the next 50 years, thus eliminating the energy crisis once and for all and making America energy self-sufficient, the technology already exists.
We COULD start in today on infrastructure repair and rebuilding- especially bridges, tunnels, and rail- that we need to move our transportation system into the 21st century.
We COULD pay for all this by printing new money instead of borrowing against future tax earnings, thus creating hyperinflation to fight the deflationary cycle.
There is plenty we COULD be doing, if we were willing to throw out 19th century theories of economics that haven't worked for the past 40 years anyway and no longer match reality.
And none of it *really* has to wait for a new administration, if it wasn't for the religion of the old administration worshiping at the altar of mammon instead of putting people before pennies. My real fear, though, is that the new administration also worships at the altar of mammon, and puts pennies before people.
is an economic tsunami as pointed out by EPI and that's why they should plain get the money and additional conditions, including trade agreement modifications should be made. There is no way you can quickly get trade treaty modifications and also have to wait for the new administration to even have a prayers chance.
What good is Leamer when 4 months later, he predicts that we would avoid a recession? Anyone can gather data. Even a person with a high school education can do that. Great...Leamer gathers good info, then does not know how to put it to practical use. What good is that?
Leamer is a book-smart person who obviously makes the same mistakes that a rookie would make by missing and misunderstanding that we would be in a recession.
BTW, we are not even close to being "probably right in the trough of the recession now" as you stated above. We already have $7 trillion invested in this economic system that is laced with toxic debt. Every month, that figure continues to rise. This will take YEARS, not months to get out of. Housing prices continue to fall. Until stabilization begins to occur, we can't even begin to think of a bottom.
We are all entitled to our opinion, but the leading indicators do not even remotely suggest an economic rebound anytime soon.
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I think there is a third prerequisite in addition to the 2 you mention above. Existing home sales increasing year over year is not enough. You also need to see a reduction in the overall mortgage delinquency rates which will lead to a decline in the additional housing supply created by the foreclosure process. Defaults are expected to increase throughout 2009 as option arm loans recast. Rising unemployment will not help delinquency rates either. A reduction in new home oversupply will surely be helpful, but we also need a reduction in the supply of existing homes that is created by the foreclosure process.
Your CAPTCHA is very difficult for me (a human) to decipher.
FWIW - I was at a conference with Leamer in June and he was confident that we'll avoid a recession - we learned on Monday that we were seven months into one at the time.
I concur with your overall assessment - I think the smart money sees home prices bottoming in 2010.
BTW - please consider dialing back the difficulty on the CAPTCHA comment verification - it is ridiculously hard.
but I could use the same graphs to show that "months of supply" and "Real Private Investment" (even adjusted to your expectations) still have a ways to go to reach bottom. Combine that with a whopper of a recession and an over correction is hardly unlikely.
How will next peak wave of recasts/resets affect housing market? Skyrocketing unemployment? Is it likely these factors create another plunge in sales and rise in inventory?
Even if they get the loan, job loss will still remain heavy and MI will still be left to twist in the wind like it has for the last eight years. As a resident of a long time and "still" donor state, let me tell you how pissed off I am.
MI was sold out and left to die while Bill Clinton diddled Monica and the unions, and the rest of the Dems passed one unfair trade deal after another. Lots of people want to know "where the hell is Obama?" He whipped 780b taxpayer dollars through to Paulson and his chums and then resigned a couple of days before the autos appeared on the Hill. They'are all alike.
They're asking for another four years -- in a just world, they'd get 10 to 20 ~~ Dennis Kucinich
I caught it too and very specifically Waggoner said no, this money would not fund anything offshore.
Now I agree that offshore outsourcing should be tied in but we also need major trade reforms but you cannot forget the emergency aspect of this and if they get the money, absolutely not should this be the end of it.
While we want that stopped, please realize the current US jobs and small businesses this would affect. Don't kill the baby because you hate the bathwater.
The first one off the line will be set up on the steps of the Senate building. The first 10 investors of $10,000 will get round-trip airfare to watch a head of cabbage bounce down the capitol steps.
I have to agree, and even worse, they are frothing at the mouth at passing....their corporate ridden, hated by most of America comprehensive immigration agenda. Look at the crap going on, the unemployment rate and that is their guest worker, labor arbitrage ridden focus. Just unreal, I wish the Progressive/Populist wing would get some real power.
..AIG continues to loot the Treasury with no result while 'SellOut' Reid, the lousiest leader of the Senate in over a century sez of the Auto re-finance, 'The votes are not there...'
Let their Calvinist God help these viles scum if ever the sheeple realize what is going on here.
Looks to me like the entire government needs the 'rope treatment'.
another good question was to ensure this money is only put in the big three domestic and not in some offshore plant or subsidiary.
Right now they are talking about nationalization, I don't trust this government to manage anything but I could see preferred shares, voting shares, profit sharing for the unions and other types of incentives.
That's a very good point, although I am kind of amused that Mr. unlimited migration (which represses wages and decimates employment law) would point out that one of the last manufacturing industries, aircraft is not a target to be captured by China.
What I get out of this article is it has become very obvious that the US needs a national strategy based on domestic national economic interests.
Sen. Bernie Sanders has done a few speeches on the too big to fail argument and Spitzer is echoing those truths.
I certainly agree it's absurd to pour more money into a financial sector which has literally demanded trade policy, deregulation that has gotten us into this mess in the first place for it's obvious that are just going along as business as usual, but with taxpayer money.
I wrote Bad Ideas, Bad Management are Rewarded with Taxpayer Money and in this post I mention some fundamental policy recommendations to make U.S. corporations more loyal, more attached to the U.S. national economic interest.
I'm kind of glad to see Spitzer writing a column. He was an idiot in my view on labor economics and also obviously had a small little character flaw but he's smart as well and knows corporate crime, corruption inside and out (now just a little more inside than we thought!). ;)
It's a good piece.
Which was- at the rate we're going, we're not going to see that make any change other than to delay the inevitable.
Or as David Suzuki put it in that article:
"The economy is not a force of nature, some kind of immutable, infallible entity. We created it, and when cracks appear, it makes no sense to simply shovel on more money to keep it going. Because it’s a human invention, an economy is something we should be able to fix – but if we can’t, we should toss it out and replace it with something better."
I agree with you that we should delay the inevitable to give the new admin a prayer's chance, but the new admin should *also* be looking at worst case contingencies of having to completely re-engineer the economy to survive.
We COULD quickly get trade treaty modifications with a 90-day ban on imports and exports, scaring the world silly with the idea of cutting off America's consumers from Chinese factories and giving third world farmers a reason to actually plant this spring as they would need to actually rely on their own internal food sources for once.
We COULD quickly nationalize the big three automakers, then retool to produce generator trailers & Michelin Active Wheel drive trains/batteries on all the current body models, which would double or triple fuel efficiency in under three months, while keeping people employed. I guarantee you that in America's market at least, a 80MPG Hummer will beat a 50 mpg Prius, and the technology to do so is as simple as replacing 10 parts in the existing assembly line.
We COULD start a national WPA/CCC like program to suck up a million or so unemployed people to give government-sponsored "ambient energy footprint" renovation to every building owner in the country over the next 50 years, thus eliminating the energy crisis once and for all and making America energy self-sufficient, the technology already exists.
We COULD start in today on infrastructure repair and rebuilding- especially bridges, tunnels, and rail- that we need to move our transportation system into the 21st century.
We COULD pay for all this by printing new money instead of borrowing against future tax earnings, thus creating hyperinflation to fight the deflationary cycle.
There is plenty we COULD be doing, if we were willing to throw out 19th century theories of economics that haven't worked for the past 40 years anyway and no longer match reality.
And none of it *really* has to wait for a new administration, if it wasn't for the religion of the old administration worshiping at the altar of mammon instead of putting people before pennies. My real fear, though, is that the new administration also worships at the altar of mammon, and puts pennies before people.
I'm looking at this ARM reset schedule specifically:
Arm Reset Schedule (click to enlarge)
is an economic tsunami as pointed out by EPI and that's why they should plain get the money and additional conditions, including trade agreement modifications should be made. There is no way you can quickly get trade treaty modifications and also have to wait for the new administration to even have a prayers chance.
What good is Leamer when 4 months later, he predicts that we would avoid a recession? Anyone can gather data. Even a person with a high school education can do that. Great...Leamer gathers good info, then does not know how to put it to practical use. What good is that?
Leamer is a book-smart person who obviously makes the same mistakes that a rookie would make by missing and misunderstanding that we would be in a recession.
BTW, we are not even close to being "probably right in the trough of the recession now" as you stated above. We already have $7 trillion invested in this economic system that is laced with toxic debt. Every month, that figure continues to rise. This will take YEARS, not months to get out of. Housing prices continue to fall. Until stabilization begins to occur, we can't even begin to think of a bottom.
We are all entitled to our opinion, but the leading indicators do not even remotely suggest an economic rebound anytime soon.
Then maybe it is time to actually replace the bathwater instead of just filtering it.
Howdy! If you register on the right and log on, all CAPTCHA goes away, comments are immediately posted and a host of features are available.
CAPTCHA is having to read in funky letters in a box to prove you are not a spammer but is only present for unregistered users who go into a moderation queue.
metastasize is an exceptional term.
I think there is a third prerequisite in addition to the 2 you mention above. Existing home sales increasing year over year is not enough. You also need to see a reduction in the overall mortgage delinquency rates which will lead to a decline in the additional housing supply created by the foreclosure process. Defaults are expected to increase throughout 2009 as option arm loans recast. Rising unemployment will not help delinquency rates either. A reduction in new home oversupply will surely be helpful, but we also need a reduction in the supply of existing homes that is created by the foreclosure process.
Your CAPTCHA is very difficult for me (a human) to decipher.
FWIW - I was at a conference with Leamer in June and he was confident that we'll avoid a recession - we learned on Monday that we were seven months into one at the time.
I concur with your overall assessment - I think the smart money sees home prices bottoming in 2010.
BTW - please consider dialing back the difficulty on the CAPTCHA comment verification - it is ridiculously hard.
but I could use the same graphs to show that "months of supply" and "Real Private Investment" (even adjusted to your expectations) still have a ways to go to reach bottom. Combine that with a whopper of a recession and an over correction is hardly unlikely.
How will next peak wave of recasts/resets affect housing market? Skyrocketing unemployment? Is it likely these factors create another plunge in sales and rise in inventory?
layoff everyone, shut off the lights, and shut down for 30 days even. MI can't get hurt any worse, so hell, let's make it 60. Let them all get a taste of what they are begging for. Whether MI has a 9.3% , 12% or 18% unemployment rate will matter little to people in a state who already can't find re-employment, save their homes, or avoid bankruptcy. Those asses in DC wouldn't even pass an unemployment extension for MI people until the rest of the country caught up to our low of 6.3%.
Even if they get the loan, job loss will still remain heavy and MI will still be left to twist in the wind like it has for the last eight years. As a resident of a long time and "still" donor state, let me tell you how pissed off I am.
MI was sold out and left to die while Bill Clinton diddled Monica and the unions, and the rest of the Dems passed one unfair trade deal after another. Lots of people want to know "where the hell is Obama?" He whipped 780b taxpayer dollars through to Paulson and his chums and then resigned a couple of days before the autos appeared on the Hill. They'are all alike.
They're asking for another four years -- in a just world, they'd get 10 to 20 ~~ Dennis Kucinich
I caught it too and very specifically Waggoner said no, this money would not fund anything offshore.
Now I agree that offshore outsourcing should be tied in but we also need major trade reforms but you cannot forget the emergency aspect of this and if they get the money, absolutely not should this be the end of it.
While we want that stopped, please realize the current US jobs and small businesses this would affect. Don't kill the baby because you hate the bathwater.
I watched the entire 6 hours tonight.
Twice there were direct questions asked if the bailout money was all going to be spent in the US.
Twice GM (Waggoner) said he would have to come back later with an answer.
Twice Ford (Mullaly) said the batteries would be made in America. Period.
Twice Chrysler (Nardelli) said that 60% of its business is in America. Period.
Pensions, pensions, pensions, UAW, UAW, UAW, labor, labor, labor, transplant, transplant, transplant, $14/hr, $14/hr, $14/hr.
This circus (Senate) is very clear to me.
Who wants to invest in my Guillotine company?
The first one off the line will be set up on the steps of the Senate building. The first 10 investors of $10,000 will get round-trip airfare to watch a head of cabbage bounce down the capitol steps.
I have to agree, and even worse, they are frothing at the mouth at passing....their corporate ridden, hated by most of America comprehensive immigration agenda. Look at the crap going on, the unemployment rate and that is their guest worker, labor arbitrage ridden focus. Just unreal, I wish the Progressive/Populist wing would get some real power.
Roubini is really talking structured bankruptcy, which I question for the big three have very unfair trade terms currently.
Over on Open Left is a quick hit on a list of economists, with links.
..AIG continues to loot the Treasury with no result while 'SellOut' Reid, the lousiest leader of the Senate in over a century sez of the Auto re-finance, 'The votes are not there...'
Let their Calvinist God help these viles scum if ever the sheeple realize what is going on here.
Looks to me like the entire government needs the 'rope treatment'.
nationalization?
Senators?
another good question was to ensure this money is only put in the big three domestic and not in some offshore plant or subsidiary.
Right now they are talking about nationalization, I don't trust this government to manage anything but I could see preferred shares, voting shares, profit sharing for the unions and other types of incentives.
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