Mise en scène

It is apparent that the Scottish Government is quite capable of maintaining the intensity of the controversy concerning an independence referendum throughout the whole period between now and the election in May 2011. In that period there will be at least one obviously relevant major political development, the UK general election this year, and one obviously major economic development.

Blighty is going to perform an economic miracle with Falklands oil? In that time frame? Ever? For that time frame what is being predicted by those who saw the present recession coming a long way off is extremely serious trouble for the UK, not least because its ridiculously hefty deficit will be greater than Greece’s ridiculously hefty deficit this year.

The CDS (Credit Default Swap) speculators who have been targeting Greece are very much expected to target dear old Blighty in a big way after feasting on Portugal and Spain and one or two other states. If the UK triple-A credit rating is lost as a result of this, the cost of servicing Blighty’s ginormous public debt goes up, and in consequence of this public spending will have to come down possibly even more than one might imagine.

If the Scottish budget provided by Westminster looks like being slashed, will the independence option be likely to seem more or less attractive, considering the size of the public sector in UK Scotland? As First Minister Salmond noted in an interview in a major financial journal during a recent official visit to France, those who forecast that there would never be a Scottish parliament and that he would never lead an SNP government are the people who are claiming that a majority of the Scottish electorate cannot be induced to vote for independence. They are also for ever telling us that everything in the Blighty garden is lovely.

In reality the W double dip that respected economists such as Drs Roubini and *Jorion, among others, have been warning about may just conceivably provide the economic and fiscal environment in which the Scottish constitutional issue will be coming to a head. Far be it from me to make such a prediction or indeed any prediction, but there does seem to be a swarm of locusts on the horizon, and it seems to be heading for Blighty.

 

*”Paul Jorion est un de ceux que l’on devrait écouter. Economiste et anthropologue, il a une vaste expérience du monde financier. Il a publié des travaux importants anticipant la crise et ce qui s’est passé, et a suggéré plusieurs propositions qui méritent l’attention de tous. Au cœur de la crise, il voit l’état de sauvagerie dans laquelle on a laissé la finance évoluer dans les dernières décennies, sous couvert d’une myriade de règlements, qui, contrairement à ce qui était prévu, ont au contraire favorisé toutes les formes d’abus et les dérives les plus hallucinantes.” (Manuel Maria Carrilho, ancien ministre portugais, La bulle du conformisme, Diario de Noticias, February 24th 2010)

[Via http://franklyfrancophone.wordpress.com]

Greensboro Economic Development Alliance Announces 2009 Results

Greensboro Economic Development Alliance (GEDA) announced today that the organization had leveraged the creation of 856 new jobs and $70.9 million in new capital investment in 2009 despite a turbulent global economy. Ameritox, Ltd., LabCorp, and Flight Safety International, Inc. all chose Greensboro and Guilford County for new facilities this year, while Machine Specialties, ConvaTec, and the HF Group, with existing local facilities, all elected to expand operations here.

Greensboro and Guilford County also enjoyed the fruit of earlier economic development announcements in 2009. Precor and O’Reilly are both operating in the eastern part of Guilford County. Mack Trucks had a grand opening for their corporate headquarters. FedEx Express opened in 2009 sorting more packages initially than when the Indianapolis hub originally opened and FedEx Ground, in the western part of the county, is under construction, still scheduled to be completed in 2011.

“2009 was certainly a challenging year for the global economy, but we continued to aggressively market Greensboro, which helped us attract investments by major companies like Ameritox, Ltd. and ConvaTec” remarked Greensboro Economic Development Alliance President, Dan Lynch. “Our momentum over the past few years was very strong and we expect 2010 to be a more robust year for Greensboro.”

GEDA focuses its work using an industry cluster strategy, centered on advanced manufacturing, aviation, financial and business services, life sciences, and transportation and logistics.

A member of the Greensboro Partnership, Greensboro Economic Development Alliance’s mission is to facilitate the creation of high quality jobs, attract new capital investment, retain and expand existing businesses, improve per capita income and generally improve the quality of life in Greensboro and Guilford County.

[Via http://thunktank.wordpress.com]

Time to bring back the 0% starting rate of corporation tax

From 2002 to 2006 the starting rate of Corporation Tax was 0%, meaning that companies making a small amount of profit had what amounted to a tax-free allowance on their profits before they started to pay Corporation Tax.

When the Labour government introduced the 0% rate in 2002 there was a marked increase in the number of company formations as self-employed people and partnerships became limited companies as a means to paying less tax. It also, critically, made setting up as a company an attractive alternative to formal employment, allowing experts to free themselves on employment contracts and work for a multitude of clients.

The 0% rate was abolished in 2006 the rate on the basis of it being too popular and damaging government revenue – it was now seen as a tax avoidance measure and not a policy to stimulate business. The result of scrapping the 0% rate was an immediate increase (running into thousands of Pounds) in tax liabilities for small companies, something the economic boom of the time could absorb without a dramatic increase in company debt.

Jump ahead to 2010 and the UK is suffering from high unemployment and small businesses are fighting for their very existence each day. The government has introduced a Business Payment Support Service to allow small companies to spread tax payments and the return of VAT to 17.5% is providing some relief to the many small businesses on the VAT Flat Rate Scheme, but neither of these measures encourage people to set up businesses, they just make it a little easier once tax payments are due – months after the initial start-up.

So wouldn’t it be smart for the next budget to bring back the 0% starting rate of Corporation Tax, ideally linked to the personal allowance for Income Tax? This would lead to a spike in businesses being formed and would give people tied into employment contracts that extra bit of confidence to go out on their own. Putting aside the obvious moral benefits of such a move, allowing people to take a chance at their own ambitions and sending a message that the government wants people to take a shot at their dreams, it would also make the economy instantly more flexible and would actually increase the likelihood of people making money for themselves and thus, the government may actually increase tax revenue as a result.

Setting up your own business should be easy and you should not be punished for doing so by tax rules dreamt up by people who have never run a small business. Indeed, government tax policy should actively encouraging people to start small businesses, making it more attractive than standard employment.

If the UK is to move away from the play-it-safe mentality of the last few years, where employees understandably forego their own ambitions in favour of security and the government creates vast bureaucracies to stifle enterprise and entrepreneurial spirit, the new government must use its first budget to actively start shifting things the other way.

The trickle-down effect would be back, and our economic recovery would be based on something more than yet further government spending.

[Via http://politicalbusiness.wordpress.com]

Climate Change Deniers - The New Truthers?

Nothing staggers and irritates me more than the ignorance of people who want to ignore climate change.  The folks who say “Hey, it’s snowing in Texas, global warming must be a big lie” stagger me because they’re just so stupid.  Never mind the fact that climate and weather aren’t the same thing, or the fact that bizarre weather patterns stem from unusual temperatures in parts of the oceans, it’s just ridiculous that these people have decided that massive heaps of peer-reviewed science are somehow “junk” because the contrived nonsense pumped out by deniers says so.

It’s funny, because one of the standard nonsense arguments that theists like to bring up when I get entangled with them is something called “Pascal’s Wager”.  The argument basically considered the possible outcomes of choosing to believe of not believe in god, against the possibility of god ecisting or not existing.  Pascal basically made the argument that if you believed in god and he didn’t exist, the consequence was basically nothing, but if you didn’t believe, and god did exist then the consequences were disastrous.

In a theological debate, the premise is a little ridiculous, it doesn’t hold any logical basis, though I’m sure for many people it’s reason enough to keep faith.

I saw a video a while ago which basically translated Pascal’s Wager to the climate change debate.  There’s four possible outcomes.  It’s either real or not real, and we either act or we don’t.  If it’s not real and we don’t act, that’s great.  If it’s not real and we act, well, we could still potentially benefit a great deal from developing new technologies and ideas that still conserve resources, make for cleaner air, etc.  If it’s real and we act, we could greatly improve our lives and possibly save ourselves as a species.  If it’s real and we don’t act – well, the results will be determined by just how severe the reality is.

The reality is that most of the changes we would need to make to address climate change would benefit us in the long run by conserving non-renewable resources like oil, natural gas, and coal.  The fact is that burning these fuels has a variety of negative environmental consquences besides CO2 production that we know to be altering the climate, as well as things likes the pH of seawater.  I say we know this because it is fact, supported with piles of research.  Burning oil releases sulphur and nitrogen oxides which create smog and acid rain.  Coal burning produces those, but also emits things like mercury into the air.

So what happens if we act to reduce those emissions?  Well, we have to come up with a way to do so – and cap & trade is one method suggested.  This sort of thing isn’t really new – I remember back in Costa Rica when I was there in 1998 that carbon offsetting and trading was being discussed then - primarily as a means to support ecologically-minded charities’ efforts to buy up rainforest tracts to preserve them.  There’s of course the argument that India & China won’t play along – but this to me is sort of a variation of the “tu quoque” fallacy.  They won’t play along, why then should we?

Ultimately, I don’t believe that not playing along gives a great competitive advantage.  Just because some other nations won’t play along right away doesn’t mean that there’s no point in trying to do so.  The fact is, as well, that the kind of advancements we can make to improve out ecological impact will likely lead to new job, new industries, to progress.  It is an inescapable fact that the “old” economy of much of North America, the manufacturing economy as we knew, is mostly done.  No longer can we expect to lead in manufacturing of simple goods – cheaper labour abroad in places like China have made that clear.  We can’t base an economy on selling hamburgers and haircuts to each other, either – so it’s clear at least to me that if we want to continue to enjoy prosperity we need to seek opportunities to strike out into new fields.

I’m looking forward to building a new home in the next few months, and putting much effort into using new technologies to make it more efficient.  As planned for now, we’ll be building an R2000+/LEED home, roughed for solar power/water heating (though I won’t be able to put it in right away), using a heat pump rather than conventional HVAC, etc.  My criteria is that the investments I make have to be ones that will actually provide a cost benefit – so no wind turbine as my research suggests that it’s not currently a benefit, but I think we’ll be able to do a lot of good.

I want this technology to be available – and I want to see my neighbours developing it and profiting from it.  That’s why we need to get to work on the problem, instead of trying to obfuscate and decate what is becoming more and more obviously fact.

Incidentally, if you’re a climate change skeptic, Canadian Senator Grant Mitchell, who’s an avid Twitter user, sent out this link from the Pembina Institute that inspired this whole post.  It’s well worth a read: http://climate.pembina.org/blog/71

[Via http://warriorbanker.wordpress.com]

Lufthansa pilots begin strike

The pilot’s union of German airline Lufthansa have begun a four-day strike over pay and job security. Operations at subsidiary airlines Lufthansa Cargo and Germanwings are also affected by the strike.

The strike began at midnight on Monday (18:00 Sunday EST) after negotiations between the airline and union, Vereinigung Cockpit, over the weekend failed to resolve the threat. According to the union, the strike was over reduced flying time for the pilots, triggered by Lufthansa’s recent acquisition of several smaller airlines, which the union says is causing traffic to be diverted from union-operated routes. Additionally, the union was seeking a pay increase of 6.4% and guarantees that German labor conditions would apply to Lufthansa crews from abroad, which would reduce the incentive for outsourcing to foreign crews. In a statement issued by Lufthansa, however, the airline said that the union also demanded a greater say in the operation of the airline, which Lufthansa was unwilling to agree to.

The strike is expected to impact travelers on other airlines, as Lufthansa is a major player in the Star Alliance, and code-share operations with other airlines operated by Lufthansa would be affected by the strike. The strike involves more than 4,000 pilots, most of whom have been working without a contract for nearly a year. According to a union spokesman, upwards of 90% of the union’s members voted to strike. The strike is expected to cost Lufthansa around US$33-34 million (about €24-25 million) a day, not counting the impact at other airlines.

[Via http://novostite.wordpress.com]

Writing a book no one wants to read

I have written a few books.  No one wants to read them or pay for them.

I suppose if they had been published, it would help.

I got disgusted to the point I don’t even know where two manuscripts are, somewhere in Mexico I suspect, and the third I have on a hard drive somewhere.

I’m not the only one who wrote a book no one is interested in.  There are plenty of us.  We turned to blogging out of frustration.

I was thinking about starting a club, the Book Writers Who No One is Interested in and offer courses in non creative writing to insure our non success.

That should get some attention.

I have read a few manuscripts or portions thereof in the past year by people who I have come to know on the web and to my way of thinking some of it is better than the books on the best sellers lists.

Is there a market saturation in authors?

WordPress has about ten million blogs and half of us are wannabe authors.  I don’t think there are enough readers in the world to keep all of us busy and there are not enough publishers to handle it.

Maybe my stuff is dull.

I think I’ll go back to my  job as a fresh air inspector. 

[Via http://plainview.wordpress.com]

▶ CLARÍN (ARGENTINA) | Buscan en la ONU una vía de negociación por Malvinas

«[...] Taiana espera arribar el próximo miércoles a la sede de las Naciones Unidas en Nueva York con un contundente documento de apoyo a la posición argentina bajo el brazo. Allí, le solicitará al secretario general, Ban Ki-moon, que convoque a una mesa de negociación con Gran Bretaña sobre la exploración petrolera en las islas. “Estamos tratando de provocar las condiciones propicias para el diálogo y la negociación”, explicó el embajador argentino ante la ONU, Jorge Argüello, a la agencia oficial Télam, al tiempo que acusó a sectores británicos de “agitar el fantasma bélico”. Por eso, subrayó que el objetivo último es “discutir la cuestión de fondo: la soberanía de las islas” [...]». Leonardo Mindez

Read the article in Clarín.

[Via http://babello.info]

Why Universal Medicare Isn't an Option

At one time, those advocating a “public option” were trying to claim it was not a socialized health care proposal like Medicaid/Medicare.

Now they’re actually proposing that this massive socialized bureaucracy be extended to cover all Americans.

The obvious question is, with a system that requires the whole of the nation to suffer a massive tax burden in order to cover 14% of the population, where are we going to get the huge amount of money necessary to cover 100%? Especially when that system is already underfunded, in danger of going broke in only a few years.

Right now, most Americans pay more to FICA than they pay in income taxes.

What happens when you increase it to cover SEVEN TIMES as many people?

Are YOU ready to pay 700% as much in taxes, to cover universal Medicare?

This socialized system only works because it involves the productive part of America paying out the nose to support a tiny fraction of the population. Making it universal would be, quite literally, saying “I know how to make a pyramid scheme work: Put EVERYONE at the top of the pyramid, at  the same time!”

And this is aside from how bad, how harmful, Medicare already is to America, even when it only covers one seventh of Americans:

• Fraud and Theft: Medicare is already fraught with fraud…it is thought that between sixty and seventy two billion dollars are stolen from the taxpayers via Medicare fraud, each year. That’s $72,000,000,000 every year. Imagine how much the fraud would balloon if the government had to police seven times as many people. The lost money would be comparable to the recent Stimulus/Bailout spending, but it would never end.
• Too Expensive and Inefficient: Medicare is ALREADY expected to run out of money by 2017. It is horribly under-funded. How are we going to expand it 700%?
• Abysmal quality: Consumer and doctor dissatisfaction with Medicare is only surpassed by the similarly government-mandated HMO system.
• Driving Costs: The ballooning cost of health care is consistently charted as having begun in the late sixties, right after the creation of Medicare. This system strips away consumer controls of prices…if the government took over the buying of your meals, the price of food would similarly go through the roof.
• Tax the Poor: The wealthiest segment of Americans is the oldest. Americans tend to gain more wealth as they age. Yet the poorest segment of Americans are forced to pay in full for FICA, already. In effect, the poorest are being taxed for the richest.

Next time someone suggests that we should simply extend Medicare to cover everyone, because it’s working so well, ask him where we’ll get the two billion people necessary to fund extending that this fraud-ridden, insolvent, price-ballooning system to the 86% of Americans who now fund it for the rest.

[Via http://butnowyouknow.wordpress.com]

Can we Create Jobs in an Economy Controlled by a Few?

by Libby Conn and John Dankosky – Today, we talk about jobs.  But, really, everybody’s talking about jobs right now.  It’s the anniversary of the Obama administration’s stimulus bill, which packed neither the job creation, nor the political punch the President was looking for. Gubernatorial candidate Ned Lamont kicked off his run officially yesterday…and job creation was the main focus of his speech (Listen for Jeff Cohen’s report here).

In fact, during yesterday’s show, we talked a bit about jobs.  How monopolistic American companies actually drive jobs away from small business, and then destroy them through mergers and off-shoring.

This is just a part of the scary outlook presented in Barry Lynn’s book, Cornered.   Keep an eye out for an upcoming piece he’s got in Washington Monthly about monopolies and job loss.  He argues that lawmakers can debate jobs legislation until they’re blue in the face, but that they won’t be taking a serious stab at the problem of unemployment unless they take a hard look at the “new monopolies” that control our economy.

We noted an interesting exchange between a Lynn, and a caller who suggested that big government regulation of corporations wasn’t going to help anything – in fact it would make it harder for small businessmen like himself.  He charged Lynn with being an “academic.”  Here’s his response:

Barry Lynn

“I don’t want big government.  One thing I think that people should understand is that I’m not an academic.  I actually don’t have a graduate degree.  I worked, managed a business for many years– an independent magazine that’s made its money in the market.  So I know about keeping the cash flowing to keep people in their jobs.  I know how tough it is.  One of the reasons I wrote this book is because I want to help the entrepreneurs in this country figure out who their friends are and who their enemies are.  Their friends tend to be each other.  They cannot count on government as an entity to save them.  They cannot count on big business to save them.  What they can do is use government to fight big business and  make a space for themselves and their brethren in other sectors…..One of the reasons that we have regulations that make it very hard for small business to start up is because government is controlled by large business….  If small businesses want to compete, the first targets they have to take on are the large businesses that use the government against them.”

(In case you feel like you’ve heard this before, it might have come from this guy.)

But listener Todd Vachon  wondered if any real such competition is possible:

“I just wanted to suggest that the natural tendency of capitalism is monopolize. The end goal of “competition” is always to defeat all competitors. While the government can regulate they can also deregulate. This is a never-ending cycle of corporate profit versus public interest. Can there ever really be an end to monopolization without actually changing the whole economic system to one that is based on different values, other than maximizing profit.”

All interesting stuff.  But, we left wondering whether anything in our political system would ever change to break this “never-ending cycle.”

[Via http://whereweblog.wordpress.com]

CNN Poll: 52% Don't want Obama Re-Elected

CNN poll: 52% say Obama doesn’t deserve reelection in 2012 By Michael O’Brien – 02/16/10 01:35 PM ET

52 percent of Americans said President Barack Obama doesn’t deserve reelection in 2012, according to a new poll.

44 percent of all Americans said they would vote to reelect the president in two and a half years, less than the slight majority who said they would prefer to elect someone else.

Obama faces a 44-52 deficit among both all Americans and registered voters, according to a CNN/Opinion Research poll released Tuesday. Four percent had no opinion.

For full article: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/81213-52-say-obama-doesnt-deserve-reelection-

[Via http://james4america.wordpress.com]

Palin’s Cunning Sleight of Hand - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist – Palin’s Cunning Sleight of Hand – NYTimes.com.

Frank Rich writes this scathing attack on the GOP incumbents who feast on pork as much as their Democrat counterparts in his normal genre.  Yet, it turns into weak propaganda as he tries to paint Palin as part of that incumbent machine – a positioning that all but the loyal leftist who are addicted to this kind of wordsmithing and need it to feed their ideological addiction.

Rich admits that Palin outsmarted the media and the liberal left with the so called “hand-gate” nonsense in another “gotcha” moment.  That infuriates him so much that he invested quite a bit of rhetorical energy into concocting this spin.

But, Americans already get it in increasing numbers, well past a majority.  We are in the mood to throw out ALL of the bums in Washington.  We already know that the GOP folks that have been in place the last two years are, for the most part, as corrupt as any politicians and stealing our taxpayer money.

Since Rich is merely stating the obvious about that, his words will be ignored by conservatives and independents.  Who cares about the rest?

[Via http://classicallib.wordpress.com]

New Home Sales Fall For December 2009

The U. S. Census Bureau announced on January 27, 2010 that sales of new one-family homes  dropped another 7.6% in December 2009 from the previous month to 342,000 units. As usual, results were mixed regionally, with the Northeast up +42.9%, the West up +5.2%, the South down -7.3%, and the Midwest down -41.1%.

The inventory of homes for sale expressed in months of supply rose to an 8.1 month supply after rising the previous month to a 7.6 month supply. Paradoxically, the actual number of homes for sale fell by another 4,000 homes from 235,000 homes in November to 231,000 homes in December, which, incidentally is the lowest number of homes for sale since 1971. That was 39 years ago!

However, the inventory of homes is traditionally expressed in the number of months of supply, in which the number of homes available for sale divided by 1/12th of the Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) of sales for the most recent month. This supply figure was at 11.2 months a year ago and peaked at 12.4 months in January 2009. Many real estate professionals consider 6-to-7 months of supply a “Normal” market.

So the inventory number was fair, but not as good as previous months.

The drop in sales is not surprising in that the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit was originally to expire on November 30, 2009, and we anticipated that buyers would have run out of time to buy a home and still close by the end of November.

This theory would suggest that you would see sharply lower sales of lower-priced homes as first-time home buyers dropped out of the market because of the end of the original home buyer tax credit; whereas, move-up buyers would be unaffected.

However, similar to the November figures, this is not what seems to have happened. Sales fell 7.6%, and, yes, the percentage share of sales to buyers of homes under $200,000, the typical first-time home buyer price range, fell from the November level of 47%  of total sales to 43% in December.

The share of sales in the first move-up price range, $200,000 to $300,000, also lost share, falling 6 percentage points from 30% in November to 24% in December.

But the share of sales of homes above $300,000 gained the 11 points, rising from 23% in October to a 34% share in December.

So it appears that new home sales fell most strongly in the middle price and middle price ranges in December, with lower-priced homes also falling in total but with a smaller drop in share of total sales. And higher-priced homes above $300,000 not only increased in market share, but they also increased by +16.7%  in actual unit sales from 6,000 homes in November to 7,000 homes in December.

Even though the Tax Credit was extended and signed by President Obama on November 6, 2009, it should take several months before the next batch of home buyers can get themselves geared up to buy a home.

So we would have expected new home sales to fall in November,and December before rising again in January leading up to the next Tax Credit Cut Off on April, 30, 2010.

Let’s see what next month’s report brings.

See the full report: http://www.census.gov/const/newressales.pdf

[Via http://regisskeehan.wordpress.com]

Bono NAACP Speech - Call to Action

Just the speech – the missing video from the Mike Pilavachi Message Hillsong Tue 8th July 08 7.30pm Special thanks to Jordan Page for posting this video on his Myspace page where I found it.  He had this under the video and I share it for you as a quote from him as he is one of my heros and truly the ‘muse of the revolution’. “JOHN ADAMS, MLK, Bob Dylan, Abbie Hoffman, Kahlil Gibran, Tim Robbins, Aaron Russo, Pearl Jam, U2, Ron Paul, Patriotic Americans who know the difference between the love of country and nationalism. Frederick Douglas said that a patriot is a person who loves their country but does not excuse its sins. I live by that philosophy.”  Jordan Page

[Via http://scrosnoe.wordpress.com]

We MUST Get Real About Unemployment

From The New York Times’ Bob Herbert: “The people suffering the most drastic employment reversals in this recession have been those who were in the lower-income groups to begin with — the young, less well-educated workers, especially black and Hispanic high school dropouts, and certain categories of service workers, such as food preparers and building cleaners. Blue-collar workers were also hammered, especially those in the construction industry. This is not to say that the middle class has not been hurt badly by the recession. It has been. In last year’s fourth quarter, the group with household incomes of $40,000 to $49,000 had a jobless rate of 9 percent, close to the disastrous national average. The $50,000 to $59,000 group had a 7.8 percent jobless rate, and households earning $60,000 to $75,000 had a jobless rate of 6.4 percent. The point here is that those in the lower-income groups are in a much, much deeper hole than the general commentary on the recession would lead people to believe. And none of the policy prescriptions being offered by the administration or the leaders of either party in Congress would in any way substantially alleviate the plight of those groups.”    

 

 Steve Austin’s response (With Apologies to Martin Niemoller):

Initially, it was worst for the minorities, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a minority.

Then it was bad for the young people, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a young person.

Then the middle class suffered, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t middle class.

Then I lost my job, and by that time there was no one left to help me.—-

Folks, this is peak oil and it’s coming after us.

read the truth here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/opinion/09herbert.html

[Via http://steveaustinlex.wordpress.com]

Economic Preview: China bank lending data likely to show rapid rise

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — Chinese banks likely extended loans in January equivalent to about one-fifth of the entire year’s lending target, following a frenzy of issuance in the first few weeks of January as borrowers sought to secure funds ahead of an anticipated credit clampdown.

Lending by the nation’s banks is estimated to tally between 1.1 trillion yuan to 1.6 trillion yuan ($161 billion to $234 billion), according to a range of analysts’ forecasts compiled by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

The data was expected to be released from the People’s Bank of China sometime this week. No formal schedule was issued for this month’s data, although it typically comes after 3.00 p.m. local time, following the close of financial markets in Shanghai.

Despite the expected sharp jump, analysts predicted limited reaction from the government, as China’s central planners have had a pretty good idea of the pace of new lending for several weeks, and already adapted their policy framework.

“This number is already known by the government at the beginning of the month, so it’s impossible to have any policy impact in the near term,” said Bank of America Merrill Lynch economist Ting Lu.

Merrill forecasted banks extended 1.5 trillion yuan in loans during the month, or about 20% of Beijing’s likely lending target for the year, which is believed to be about 7.5 trillion yuan.

Meanwhile, a state-run publication said last week that Chinese lending for January totalled 1.6 trillion yuan. See full story on Chinese loan forecast.

This would compare with December lending of 379.8 billion yuan. See full story on China’s December lending.

Regulators ordered banks to tighten their lending at a meeting in Beijing on Jan. 18 after data showed 1.1 trillion yuan in new loans were issued during the first two weeks of the month. Regulators also raised the amount of funds that banks must set aside as deposits, and issued guidance on what sectors should receive credit.

Market Edge: How Fast is China Likely to Cool?

There’s overheating in certain parts of the Chinese economy, such as the property sector, but that doesn’t mean it can be called a bubble, according to Richard Gao, lead manager of the Matthews China Fund. Laura Mandaro reports.

Beijing reportedly told banks to moderate lending to the steel and real-estate industries. Financing for the purchase of automobiles was also tightened, with a 30% down payment requirement brought back after a stimulus program in 2009 that briefly saw a zero down-payment scheme payday loans.

Merrill’s Lu believes there is a chance the lending figure could be sharply below expectations, as some of China’s biggest banks called back loans they made in the early part of the month, under orders from the nation’s banking regulator.

The consensus view, however, is for the January figures to show lending outpacing that of the three previous months combined.

However, a high lending figure for the month “should not be interpreted as a evidence that Beijing is planning to keep credit conditions very loose, with all signs suggesting that officials will continue to keep a close check on lending,” said RBC Capital Markets senior analyst Brian Jackson in a note.

China is trying to tamp down bank lending amid growing concerns over asset bubbles and signs the real estate market is overheated, but it’s not clear that a significant tightening is underway.

Inflation may be grim

Equally important for the future of Chinese policy will be Thursday’s release of consumer and producer price data.

The producer price index is expected to show a particularly sharp rise, gaining 4.2% compared with December’s rise of 1.7%, according to a Reuters survey.

Consumer price inflation, meanwhile, is expected to inch up to 2.0% from December’s 1.9%.

RBC expects an outlook for an “uncomfortably high” inflationary level for the next few months.

RBC’s Jackson said Beijing is keenly aware of the social tensions that arose during the last inflationary cycle.

“Further increases in the main headline measures will likely put greater pressure on Beijing to deliver a broader policy response than that which has already been undertaken,” Jackson said.

Offering up a contrasting view, Goldman Sachs Chief Economist Jim O’Neill told reporters in Hong Kong on Tuesday that he expects China to revert to an easing bias by summer if housing prices stabilize around current levels.

Also due out Thursday are retail sales and industrial production data.

Analysts cautioned against reading too much into the figures, which will be affected by seasonal distortions related to the Chinese New Year holiday. The week-long holiday, which is accompanied by a virtual shutdown of the nation’s industry, occurred in January last year, but will get underway this year in February.

Economic Preview: China bank lending data likely to show rapid rise

[Via http://maksonkert.wordpress.com]

America’s Low-Wage Future

Image via Wikipedia

by Jack Metzgar

British historian E.H. Carr once said something to the effect that while no serious scholar makes up the facts, they all choose which facts “to put on stage.” The problem of cultural bias is that there are way too many facts to give them all their proper due, and in choosing what we think is most significant among them, we are guided by our own focus and general sense of significance – that is, by our values, our hopes and fears, and our everyday sense of how the world works.

Every two years the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) makes detailed projections of how many jobs there will be in which occupations ten years from now. The latest one came out late last year, and among a dizzying array of facts and figures, here’s what they headlined in italics at the top of their report:

Professional and related occupations and service occupations are expected to create more new jobs than all other occupational groups from 2008 to 2018; in addition, growth will be faster among occupations for which postsecondary education is the most significant form of education or training. . . . .

This was duly reported by The New York Times under the headline “Where the Jobs Will Be,” with the same emphasis on “professional and related occupations” and “postsecondary education.” The message is that our society is going to need many more college graduates than it has now, which is true. The impression most often left, however, is that we are rapidly becoming a society of “professionals” and “knowledge workers,” and that the key to our future is making sure that almost everybody gets a college education. This impression is not only false, but spectacularly so.

Disguised in the text, but present in the BLS tables is another set of facts: Only 21% of jobs now require a bachelor’s degree, and despite faster growth among these credentialed occupations, that isn’t going to change much. By 2018, according to the BLS, only 22% of jobs will require a bachelor’s degree or more. Of the 51 million “job openings due to [both] growth and replacement needs” in the next ten years, fewer than 12 million will require a bachelor’s degree.

At the heart of what the BLS and The New York Times choose to put on stage is a confusion between the fastest growing jobs and the jobs with the largest job growth. Though the BLS tables report both the fast and the large in detail, the headline and the text emphasizes speed over size. For example, the fastest growing occupation in the next ten years will be biomedical engineers; these jobs will increase by a whopping 72% from 16,000 to nearly 28,000, a net increase of 12,000 jobs. Meanwhile, retail salespersons will see job growth of a meager 8.4%, but since there are now more than 4 million of them, that’s an increase of 375,000 jobs.

A second confusion involves the word “service,” which in other contexts is used to indicate all work that does not involve making or building things, as in “service economy.” This usage conjures images of doctors, lawyers, teachers, and management consultants – all of them growing occupations and highly paid. But that’s not what the BLS means by “service occupations.” The BLS service jobs with the largest projected growth are home health and personal aides; food service workers (including fast food); nursing aides; landscaping and groundskeeping workers; medical assistants; security guards, and child care workers – all of them already very large and all of them paying “low” or “very low” wages.

Of the 30 fastest growing occupations, 14 require at least a bachelor’s degree and another five will require an associate’s degree; all 19 of these fast-growing jobs pay “very high” or “high” wages by BLS standards. That is good news. But among the 30 with the largest growth, only seven require a bachelor’s and one more requires an associate’s. And, unlike the fast, of the top 30 for size, the majority of new jobs are either “low wage” or “very low wage.” Here’s my tabulation of the largest 30 by how well they pay:

Top 30 occupations with largest projected job growth, 2008-2018

2008 median annual earnings

by quartiles (# of occupations)

# of new jobs projected % of top

30 jobs

Very High:

$51,540 & above (7)

1,771,100 24% High:

$32,390 to $51,530 (8)

1,523,100 21% Low:

$21,590 to $32,380 (9)

2,131,400 29% Very Low:

Less than $21,590 (6)

1,899,400 26%

These top 30 occupations account for about one half of the net new jobs the BLS projects, and other data show that the wage composition of these 30 is not unrepresentative of the job structure as a whole, now and in 2018. If these were the facts the BLS chose to put on stage, the headline might be: Majority of American workers projected to remain poorly paid and in need of a living wage.

We might then realize that we cannot close the widening gap between the earnings of high school graduates and college graduates simply by producing more college graduates. There simply are not and will not be enough jobs requiring a college education. With a different set of facts on stage, we would understand that we need to do something to increase the majority’s wages and incomes directly.

What’s more, as a nation we know how to do this because we’ve done it before, in the three decades after World War II. Though each has its limits, we need some combination of greater unionization, steadily improving minimum wage laws, and enhancements in the social wage, now called “work supports.” Democrats, for all their other faults, have committed to advancing on all three of these fronts, and in the last three years have advanced a little on each of them. College professors (called “postsecondary teachers” and #10 on the BLS largest list) could lend a hand simply by putting some of these “other” facts on our stages. The BLS largest list is a richly complex document that reveals contradictory tendencies in what some 150 million of us do and will do to earn a living. My arrangement of that list by educational requirements and pay simplifies it some by separating out those countertendencies. No facts are made up, but by reorganizing the stage, the same facts make a decidedly different impression.

Jack Metzgar is  Emeritus Professor of Humanities and Social Justice at Roosevelt University, Chicago. This post originally appeared on Working-Class Perspectives, the blog of the Working Class Studies Association.

[Via http://talkingunion.wordpress.com]

Paulson and Greenspan on Meet the Press

Remember when Tim Russert was the host and Meet the Press was a serious news show? Those days are no more. Now the host is David Gregory and the best Meet the Press can do is look to two of the architects of the financial meltdown for their opinion on how the recovery is going.

As Crooks and Liars put it:

“Oh yes, who better to bring in than Hank Paulson and Alan Greenspan to ask how we get the economy and the job market turned around in the United States? I know I always want to hear from the people who helped take a wrecking ball to something for advice on how to put it back together.”

Three things I did learn from Jeff Daniels and Jim Carrey Paulson and Greenspan yesterday:

1. The worst of the recession is yet to come.

2. Housing prices are headed lower.

3. Unemployment is going up.

How do I know this? Paulson and Greenspan predicted the opposite. Holding true to form, both also predicted the Colts would win the Super Bowl.

Sneak preview: Next Sunday on Meet the Press, the captain of the Titanic discusses how to avoid icebergs, and Tiger Woods gives advice on marital fidelity.

[Via http://desperadosoutpost.com]

Chapter 1: In defense of capitalism

The first chapter of Glenn Beck’s book “Arguing With Idiots,” the subject of capitalism is brought up.

He starts out with the typical American dream anecdote: Sam Insull, who co-founded Edison General Electric, worked under Thomas Edison for a several years to learn as much as he could to one day start his own business. Sam did and his business thrived. (The actually story is quite amazing.) To sum up the story, because of his business, Sam’s net worth exceeded $100 million in the 1920’s after bring electricity to millions of people, practically making it a necessity. When the Great Depression hit, Sam’s company tanked like thousands of others and left stock holders in shambles. The government charged him with fraud, was acquitted, but nonetheless, fled to France because of the public outrage. This is just an example of what capitalism can do.

Truth is not all entrepreneur experiences are like this. That was an example of what happens when the government unfairly steps in to the private sector. What capitalism does is allows opportunities. A quote I liked from this chapter stats it very clearly: “Capitalism can’t get you a job, a bigger house, or a better retirement–you have to do all of those things for yourself. But what capitalism can do is foster an environment where those with the will to succeed have a better chance of achieving their dreams.” It can’t be said any better than that.

Fact is, capitalism is the only economic system that is proven to stimulate growth and increase standard of living the fastest. However, that is “democratic capitalism.” This is what was intended for when our framers created this great nation. With all the government regulations, unions and such, this increases our prices on products, thus making them less desirable to the rest of the world. Some government regulation is good, what we have currently…not so much.

Another valid point that is missing out of capitalism these days is generosity. As citizens and people for that matter, it is our duty to help our neighbor when he/she needs help. Greed has taken over too many people’s lives. Sure, America is the wealthiest nation in the world, and contributes the most when called upon, but still more can and should be done to help our fellow Americans.

There is plenty more to be read and explained in this chapter, but that should cover the basics. I’d hate for someone not to buy Glenn’s book on my account!

[Via http://peterrandolph.wordpress.com]

On my mind this morning: I need a man with me to buy a new car.

Suze has told me how to be Young, Fabulous, and Broke.  And now, she’s talking Women & Money to let me know how to control my own destiny.  In light of all this knowledge from Suze in her fabulous books, and the great strides that women have made in terms of financial empowerment and equal rights, I have this pressing question to ask:

Why do I need a man with me to go buy a new car???

My car was totaled in the past month – I’m ok, thanks – and the insurance companies have finally settled on my payment.  I am now ready to buy a new car that meshes with my fabulously broke, fiscally conscious lifestyle.  It’s a recession.  Considering all the fancy negotiations that take place on the lots of car dealerships, I am currently considering either my male friend who is a psychologist, my male lawyer friend, or my male friend who has a PhD in street hustling to come with me to make sure I get the best deal for my money.  I have female psychologist, lawyer, and (legally) hustling friends, but I just don’t think these women will get the job done.

I have decided there could be several reasons I feel like I still need a man with me at the car dealership in 2010:

1. Women may feel empowered, but society has not given us the full power we deserve to obtain fair treatment in financial, workplace, and other critical negotiations.
2. I am intimidated by the car buying process and am trying to make this a “gender” issue, when it’s really a “me” issue.
3. Car salespersons, in general, are dishonest and may take advantage of me.  I am trying to avoid this at all costs and feel like a big scary man might do the trick.

Whatever the reason may be – and let me stop and say that I heart car salespersons – I feel like I am not the only single, young woman who faces this dilemma. Are these fears legitimate?  Or, as a financially savvy, empowered young woman, can I go buy this car on my own and get a fair price?

photo credit

[Via http://youngwomenmisbehavin.com]

Republicans Chase Wall Street Donors - WSJ.com

Republicans Chase Wall Street Donors – WSJ.com.

It’s gotten to the point that the politicians don’t even realize how outrageous their behavior and language surrounding their lapdog relationship with Wall Street might actually appear to the rest of us.  Case in point, the above article from the Wall Street Journal.  Please read it to get the full effect, but I just have to include a couple of quotes that stand out for there sheer unmitigated gall.  I only wish I had a video of John Stewart facial expressions to go along with them.

Last week, House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio made a pitch to Democratic contributor James Dimon, the chairman and chief executive of J.P. Morgan, over drinks at a Capitol Hill restaurant, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Boehner told Mr. Dimon congressional Republicans had stood up to Mr. Obama’s efforts to curb pay and impose new regulations. The Republican leader also said he was disappointed many on Wall Street continue to donate their money to Democrats, according to the people familiar with the matter.

Thank goodness we have the Republicans to stand up for the little guy.

But that is nothing compared to this beauty of a quote by Rep. Eric Cantor (R., VA).

I sense a lot of dissatisfaction and a lot of buyer’s remorse on Wall Street,” said Rep. Eric Cantor (R., Va.), the second-ranking House Republican and a top Wall Street fund-raiser for his party.

Do they not even listen to themselves talk anymore??!!  Buyers remorse??!!!  Well, I’m sure Rep. Cantor and the other Republicans are more than ready to step in and give Wall Street their money’s worth.  They will probably even give them a discount, with the economy being so bad and all.

RadicalNOTA

[Via http://radicalnota.wordpress.com]

The real record on deficits

Dick Morris wrote an interesting article yesterday on what’s really been happening with the deficit situation. President Obama and the Democrats have been distorting the record to make their own profligate spending look moderate. First, they excused the $1.4 trillion deficit we accrued last year by saying that Obama put the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq “on budget” where Bush had put them “off budget”, but the truth was the war budget was a minority proportion of the deficit. The rest of it was the $787 billion “stimulus” bill, and entitlement programs. In Obama’s recent State of the Union speech he said that he inherited a huge deficit that was just a little smaller than the deficit we had last year, and a bad economy. “Bush made me do it,” is his refrain. Such a leader.

Morris lays out the truth about Bush’s deficit from 2008. It was not $1.3 trillion as Obama claims. It was more like $800 billion, which is still huge by pre-Obama standards. Democrats and Republicans used to complain if deficits were $400 billion or more.

The reason Morris makes his claim is that Obama, in blaming Bush, is including the $700 billion the Bush Administration allocated for TARP. Now, TARP, if you’ll remember, was supposed to be used to prop up our major financial institutions, to save them from collapse. It was money on loan to them. They were supposed to pay it back with interest. Most of this money has been paid back by now, with interest. So why is the Obama Administration counting this money as part of the deficit? Sen. Judd Gregg complained bitterly yesterday that the Obama Administration wants to use the repaid TARP funds as a credit source for small businesses. Gregg pointed out that there was a provision in the TARP legislation, which he put in, which said that the monies that were to be paid back must be used to pay down the public debt. If the government did that, Gregg said, it would reduce the national debt by $300 billion next year. But no. Obama wants to reuse it, and he’s confident that the Democrats will change the law to allow it. In effect, Obama wants to make it so that this money is never counted as a credit in the budget. Not that small businesses wouldn’t repay their loans, but come on. Look where this is going. Once that money is repaid through their new program, they’ll just find some other use for it. Obama wants the government to become a bank. He is covering for this by once again blaming Bush, making him look like a liberal spender, not unlike himself. The truth is that Obama’s deficit was not merely $100 billion more than Bush’s. He nearly doubled Bush’s 2008 deficit in 2009! This is yet another distraction.

[Via http://piboulder.wordpress.com]

Case-Shiller Housing Price Index For November 2009 Rises For Seventh Consecutive Month

Home Prices Rise At 7.2% Annual Rate Over Last Seven Months

Seasonally adjusted home prices in November of 2009 rose 0.2% from the prior month according to data released on January 26, 2010 by Standard and Poor’s in its 20-City Composite S&P/ Case-Shiller® Home Price Index.

There were monthly increases in November in 14 of the 20 markets tracked. Six of the markets fell.

Home prices have now risen seven months in a row for a total of +4.2% for the seven months, or an annual rate of increase over the period of +7.2%.

However, because of price declines in the previous 5 months, the price index still fell by 5.3% year-over-year during the 12 months ending in November 2009.

We predict that the 20-City Composite Index will achieve its first year-over-year increase since 2007 in the January 2010 report. We expect the increase to be in the range of +0.1% to +1.0%.

Our methodology is straightforward and simple minded. By examining the prior monthly decreases it is possible to predict when we will see year-over-year gains in this index: December 2008 was -2.6%, and January 2009 was -2.8%, which totals -5.4%. So by simple math, if prices for the next two months remained flat, we would see a +0.1% year-over-year increase in the 12-month period ending in January 2010 as the large prior-year decreases drop out of the calculation and are replaced with zeroes. And, if prices rise the same the next two months as they did in the last two, an increase of +0.5%, then the Year-over-year increase would be +0.6%.

The index tracks quality-adjusted actual resale home closing prices for thousands of existing single-family homes in 20 metropolitan areas. The index excludes condos, coops, and new construction.

By tracking price changes of specific, individual homes over time, the index attempts to eliminate the problem of unreliable  home price averages caused by the changing mix of homes sold in different time periods. (For example, in weak markets, a greater proportion of small, starter homes are typically sold, reducing average prices even though the prices of specific homes may be unchanged or even increased.)

The dramatic improvement in the S&P/Case-Shiller® Home Price Index provides more evidence that the housing market is continuing to heal from the worst decline in housing activity in decades.

Furthermore, it suggests that prospective homebuyers waiting for lower prices may be disappointed.

With 30-year fixed mortgage interest rates now near 5% and rising, and the supply of homes beginning to dwindle, delaying a home purchase may prove to be an unwise strategy.

See the full release: http://www.standardandpoors.com/servlet/BlobServer?blobheadername3=MDT-Type&blobcol=urldocumentfile&blobtable=SPComSecureDocument&blobheadervalue2=inline%3B+filename%3Ddownload.pdf&blobheadername2=Content-Disposition&blobheadervalue1=application%2Fpdf&blobkey=id&blobheadername1=content-type&blobwhere=1245205349706&blobheadervalue3=abinary%3B+charset%3DUTF-8&blobnocache=true

[Via http://regisskeehan.wordpress.com]

Defence cuts; necessary and now.....

Tory Rascal takes Labour to task for future defence cuts. Although chaos reigns in Conservative economic policy I still find it hypocritical for a Conservative to take Labour to task on these grounds because it is clear that a Conservative government still maintains a deep-seated ideological committment to cutting the deficit.

However, that being said this is one area where cuts are necessary and should happen now. Rascal admits that these may not exactly be unpopular but wrongly blames ‘Labour’s wasteful record’ for decreasing public support.  I prefer an alternative explanation namely that the public are not stupid and have seen through the lie that the route through the ‘War on Terror’ is to use conventional military means.

Looking at the interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan they rightly judge them as failures. Although the media narrative says things are hunky-dory in Iraq now they clearly are not and occasionally news leaks out that confirms this.  Turning their gaze to things like Trident they rightly conclude the possession of nuclear capability is a bigger danger than benefit. In short, defence cuts would be popular because they are right; its high-time the ballooning of the defence budget was ended.

In reality, in government, we have consistently got the ‘War on Terror’ spectacularly wrong. We have fought two costly and counter-productive wars and ploughed money into the defence budget taking it away from where it should be going towards improving and reducing the margin for error in intelligence gathering. It’s not as if any of our opponents would have done any better because both are happy to carry on fighting this war.

This is another area where a rediscovery of boldness of vision is needed; the public have seen with their own eyes the shortcomings of establishment approaches on this issue and are crying out for a fresh approach. A change of tack would be well received; once again there is a happy convergence between what is popular and right, all that is required is political courage.

[Via http://momentsofc.wordpress.com]

YouTube Music Video - Band Of Patriots: Take Our Freedom Back!

January 31, 2010: lonelantern / YouTube – September 1, 2009

Band Of Patriots: “Take Our Freedom Back”

The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: A diamond in the ruff video that I just discovered tonight while listening to Jason Bermus on the Alex Jones Show as per recommended by a caller in to the show… – SJH

[Via http://stevenjohnhibbs.wordpress.com]