First!!

This was a very powerful and didactic speech on the current global economic situation and issues. People should take away from the speech that the global economy will return to low growth and the risk of double dip recession is essentially tied to policy makers’ decision of whether to exit or not to exit current stimulus and liquidty.But I have believe with 2001 experience of leaving the rate too low for too long, Fed will be more mindful of the liquidity it has injected into the economy. Currently, most of the liquidty is still parked on banks’ balance sheet. Fed has recently came up with new method to contain this liquidity increase by giving interest on those reserve. Therefore, banks will be less reluctant to lend to the market and will keep the money on their balance sheet.In the future, emerging markets will no longer be emerging markets. These markets will determine the global growth rate in the next century. Even though they are small in terms of GDP compared to other advanced economies. Their growth rate is compensating for their small economy. So do not rule out the influence of these burgeoning markets.

2nd!!!

4th!!

I dont think so….Continued NO JOBS is full speed ahead… in the past week i have read of thousands of job cuts that will be occuring jsut by the Frotune 1000 companies… And do not foget Samml business acounts for well over 70% of all Jobs in the US and small business is falling off a cliff…Get Ready For 7 Million More Lost JobsCharles Hugh SmithThe hype is that the “recession is over.” Has anyone touting this line actually walked around the real world? The next 7 million jobs to be lost are already in the pipeline.The divergence between the reality easily observed in the real world and the heavily touted hype that “the recession is over because GDP rose 3.5%” is growing. It’s obvious that another 7 million jobs which are currently hanging by threads will be slashed in the next year or two.According to the latest Employment Situation Summary (Bureau of Labor Statistics) dated November 7, 2009:Total nonfarm payroll employment declined by 190,000 in October. In the most recent 3 months, job losses have averaged 188,000 per month, compared with losses averaging 357,000 during the prior 3 months. In contrast, losses averaged 645,000 per month from November 2008 to April 2009. Since December 2007, payroll employment has fallen by 7.3 million.Civilian labor force: 154 millionEmployment: 138.3 millionUnemployment: 15.7 millionSept-Oct. change in employment: -589,000in unemployment: 558,000Not in labor force: 82,575,000It is staggering that 7 million jobs lost out of 145 million (the total prior to the financial meltdown) has created a 10.2% unemployment rate. The numbers here don’t add up–”only” 190,000 jobs were lost in October, but then employment fell by 589,000–huh?–but the point missing is how many jobs are hanging by a thread.I recently traveled to Los Angeles to be interviewed by my polymath friend and media maven Richard Metzger, creator of the Dangerous Minds website which has rocketed to 50,000 page views a day since he launched it a few months ago. (The topic was of course Survival+; look for the interview in about a week on Dangerous Minds.)(Richard also manages the L.A. Time’s hot blog Brand X which will have you humming Randy Neuman’s I Love L.A. in short order.)Has anyone noticed that airports are commercial dead-zones peopled by zombie clerks suffering from terminal boredom?One desperate young man had taken the unenviable job of hawking Chase credit cards via a weak pitch for a free ticket on Southwest Air (retail value $59). Since I like to arrive early for flights (perhaps scar-tissue remaining from being on TSA’s “watch list” for months on end, and almost missing flights as a result–”papers, please!”) I was able to observe hundreds of travelers stream by the young man’s kiosk while he gamely voiced the pitch. Not one person even paused, much less stopped.Translation: Up yours, Chase credit cards.How many of these dead-zone airport retail kiosks will go dark next year?The See’s Candy kiosk: bored clerk rearranging pricey boxes of candy, no customers. Ditto the sunglasses kiosk, and every retail outlet except Starbucks, which was moving plain coffee and the pizza/beer establishment which did a brisk business around 7-8 p.m. with the “heading home Sunday evening” crowd.(Richard and I had picked up some excellent Chicken Tikka Masala from a small indian market on Pico Blvd., so I wasn’t tempted.)I rented a brand-new 4-door Ford Focus–a nice car with plenty of zip–for $24 total, including all the ripoff airport and State of California taxes, with unlimited miles. $24 for all day, including all the new junk fees added to car rentals? Deal!The red Mustang sat in the rental lot, a rather sad icon, while the cheapest compacts were rented and driven off the lot. What does that say?Arriving early at the studio (natch), I had time to wander down one of the premiere open-air retail malls in the nation, the Promenade in Santa Monica (town of my birth, heh, though I never lived there). Other than one or two Asian tourists, no one carried a shopping bag of any size or type. This was noon on Sunday, a busy shopping day, and nobody was buying anything. Barney’s Beanery was doing a good business but most other dining establishments were crypts.Sauntering down blocks of America’s standard-issue mall outlets–J. Crew, Apple, Pottery Barn, etc. etc.–the stores were empty though the sidewalks were busy.Victoria’s Secret was promoting 7 panties for $21–how much profit can VS rake in selling 7 panties for $21?–and the store was empty. Even the Apple store was a morgue.Bored waiters were leaning on sidewalk cafe railings, and a few employees were sitting outside talking with their friends–tip-off–no drinks, no food, the table was bare.OK, here’s the money shot. Recall for a split second I am a writer (for better or worse) and so my “job” is to observe people closely (22 years free-lancing, man, am I dumb to keep doing this!).So a tres-chic young Caucasian woman with two adorable kids around 7 to 9 years of age pauses a few yards from me. The woman has the casually tony attire and slim figure of someone who either is a well-educated professional pulling down major dollars or someone whose spouse is pulling down major dollars in some yuppie gig (or both spouses are doing so).The yuppie Mom pulls her wallet out of her upscale little purse as the two kids gather round and I am thinking, “She’s going to give each kid a Jackson ($20) or at least a fiver just to blow on whatever strikes their fancy.”This is, after all, Santa Monica on a Sunday, and this is a yuppie Mom with the bucks to pay for high-end casual attire, hair coloring, personal trainer, gym membership, etc.After digging around a bit, she extracts two pennies which she gives to her kids to toss into the water feature/fountain nearby.I think this rather neatly summarizes the entire U.S. consumer and the future of the economy.Doesn’t anyone follow the threads of what is easily observable anywhere in America?Consider for a moment one of the few businesses licensed to print money–towing companies with city contracts. What are the odds that these towing outfits are towing cars which no one ever claims? Heck, with tickets, towing and storage fees, the cost of reclaiming your vehicle can run into the hundreds of dollars in a mere day or two.That is more than many vehicles are worth. So what’s the net result? the towing companies’ lots will soon be filling with junkers and their revenues will be falling as down-and-out citizens abandon their vehicles because they don’t have the money to get them un-impounded.Net-net, when the towing company’s revenues fall then somebody’s hours or job gets cut.About once a month I take my Mom out to dinner in San Francisco, “the most European city in America” and a favorite city for those with disposable income. The city contains approximately three restaurants per resident (slight exaggeration) with a Michelin one-star establishment (i.e. excellent, superb, etc.) about every block in the better neighborhoods.Yes, it is a splurge, but it’s my Mom and it’s our “quality time.” So we chat with the waiters and waitresses, and on opera nights and the like, business is so good it seems impossible the word “recession” is even being bandied about.But when it’s slow, it’s dead. It seems almost random, which nights are busy and which are slow, but the net result is far from random. A couple of places that we occasionally frequented a mere year ago are now dark.A friend of ours has been trying to sell an investment house in a highly desirable zip code in a San Francisco Bay Area suburb. Built perhaps a decade ago, the house would have fetched $800,000 in a heartbeat in 2006, and our friend rejected an offer of $550,000 a year ago as absurdly low. This is after he spent a lot of money having the home repainted in and out, new cabinet doors installed, new carpeting, etc.That was the only offer the property has received in over a year. Needless to say, maintaining the mortgage is killing him financially.How many hundreds of thousands of families are in the same situation?The Honolulu Symphony, which I enjoyed occasionally when I lived on Oahu, recently declared bankruptcy. How many other non-profit arts, theater and community groups are hanging by a thread? Hundreds, if not thousands.Put together the anecdotal evidence and the next 7 million jobs to be lost are already in the pipeline. I could go on and on about the small businesses whose owners are preparing to close “if things don’t pick up a big way soon” and all the other signs that a new wave of massive job losses is rising. But you know that already if you’ve walked around with your eyes open.

“Victoria’s Secret was promoting 7 panties for $21″>.< Wow what a bargain. Wanna BUY!! Adding sexy panties to my wardrobe. ^_^

I’ll go back to what I said earlier … y ou’ll know that the recesison in the USA is truly over when you see a lot of people going out and purchasing new auto’s. But it will take several months of data on auto sales to prove that a bottom is in for that market.Right now … I’m dubious. Everyone in my neck of the woods is driving their current vehicle (new or old) and adding extra miles to it. In fact, I’m running into people who say they are low on cash – and they aren’t even keeping the routine maintence going properly.PeteCA

The risks that Dr. Roubini elaborates on are huge and the chance that the US policy dictators or for that matter, any policy maker will make the correct decisions at the correct time is extremely unlikely. It must be on the odds of tens of millions to one. The chance that the financial and economic decisions of the FED and the US Treasury who never saw any of this coming, or so they say, can even make a correct decision is as common as a rogue wave.IF they made the right decision along with Congress in their stimulus and bail outs so far, wouldn’t that make a subsequent string of decisions to steer the economy, not a certainty but as rare as the first success. What’s the chance? Probably less than three back to back grand slam home runs in a world series.And besides, wouldn’t it be an oxymoron for a central bank to make decisions that control a free market and fix its problems? Isn’t that a Command and Control Economy and didn’t we decide that those don’t work? I guess not as it seems that the world is willing to go along and try again. Only after every mistake and policy failure, the next attempt gets bigger and bigger.. A lot like continuing to double down at the blackjack table hoping for that one good card.

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/373697/Falling-U.S.-Dollar-It's-Lack-of-Demand-Not-Rising-Supply-Pharo's-Dow-Says?tickers=%5Egspc,%5Edji,dia,spy,uup,udn,tbt&sec=topStories&pos=9&asset=&ccode=this guy gets right. Dollar we dont need you, go away!! then what does that say about USA influence on the world economies?

as world rely less on USD, the world will rely less on USA consumer. Yup, rebalancing is happening in gradual pace. Global rebalancing and recovering is sure happening. is USA changing, THAT IS ANOTHER STORY wuaHAHAHA

A sobering bit of information.From my perspective I can certainly say in 30 years of doing business I have never known it this bad, my business is dead. For the first time in my life I’m really wondering what to do next. I am genuinely afraid, this is so serious, and so grim that I can now see a future with the madness that some of the ‘shrills’ have been predicting, food riots, civil unrest etc.I also can’t access the video, seems it doesn’t play on Mac/Safari?

I suspect the Federal Government doesn’t get it. I envision marches in Washington and violence in the streets as the likley wake up call. So far, so quite. But, more job losses, more forclosures, more defaults, bankruptcies, and stories of personal tragedies will get us closer to the critical mass fuse. Two stories today in the local paper about fathers/husbands shooting their families and then commiting suicide. Tell me this ain’t a sign of much more to come. We are all crazy, at least in part. Sanity is relative, and our national baseline is moving in the wrong direction. Stay connected folks, reach out, it’s ok to cry and show anger. Isolationalism breeds dispair. Stay connected to friends, family, and church. Stay connected.

Exactly WinstonIts 1 in 7 household that go hungry in America today [50,000,000]….it was more like 1 in 4 going hungry during the Great Depression, but bear in mind, there was a dust bowl then too, so the historical comparison to then and now is legitimate.

Speaking of governance, its principles, objectives and tools:”The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything. Except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands.” Oscar Wilde 1854-1900 Irish novelist.Ho hum

Not my writing… it was from Charles Hugh Smith.

I guess you would consider yourself amoral?Above caring about your fellow citizens?Interesting. I am surprised you don’t post as anonymous as being overtly self centered is not usually well liked by others. Not one of the popularity traits. Worse is to be proud of being one of the Oligarchs. Oligarchs usually hide from the sight of the masses who they tend to abuse. Not only because they dislike them but just because they can. Besides it is fearful for anyone to be in unknown or disenfranchised territory. After all, being an Oligarch is the same as being of the privileged who deserve all they have.My advice is to stay out of sight and make sure you travel in your bomb and bullet proofed car from your compound to your private jet. Stay in the prison of your own making because it probably isn’t safe out here. Someone who perceived, wrongly or rightly, that you are the cause of their family starving or being hungry may just take their anger and frustration out on you. I guarantee you that the people on the outside are not as stupid, uneducated or undeserving as you want to pretend they are.

The US possesses some of the world’s largest reserves of both NG and coal. We also produce much of the world’s nuclear technology. There is NO reason that the US can not remain as a healthy viable economic force, except that those who have the power are either ill informed, bought off or just plain idiots.It just amazes me how intelligent well educated people can be so easily manipulated. I am speaking of our representative government.

http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/template/apple/art_main.php?iss_id=20091118&sec_id=15335&subsec_id=15336&art_id=13432204obama

I have just spent and interesting and enjoyable thirty minuets or so watching Doctor Roubini’s very slick and very rational presentation. Maybe (or should I say “probably”?) I’m all wet, but I am concerned about some of the implicit assumptions upon which his conclusions are based.First a trivial example of what I think an assumption is. Doctor Rubini hypothesizes that there exists an exit point “sweet spot”. If the government stops its subsidization of the economy at the sweet spot time, everything will be honky dory. If the exit is made before the sweet spot time, we will have one set of severe economic problems; if it is made after, we will have a different set. What he lacks is what the mathematicians call en “existence proof”–it’s not only possible, but highly probable, that no such sweet point exists, and that the real world exit point will be an economic catastrophe.Now for a couple of what I think are less trivial problems. Doctor Rubini himself has written about an asset bubble. It is generally conceded by many competent economists there there is also a commercial property bubble and a stock market bubble, and there are probably other bubbles of which I am unaware. It is very likely that one or more of these bubbles will burst before or during the time frame for which Dr. Rubini is making his predictions, but he does not cover what the impact of these likely events would have on his predictions. (I guess that the assumption is that these events either won’t occur, or if they do, they will not result in another recession or depression.)I do occasionally visit web sites other than that of Dr. Rubini. At the peak oil site (http://peak oil.blogspot.com) you will find the following items:1. We have already entered the “peak oil zone”.2. The USA is pressuring the IEA to inflate it’s world production figures, as publication of the true figures would cause panic in the world economic markets. According to some experts, it seems that it is no longer possible to maintain a production level of even 90m to 95m barrels per day.(I guess the assumption make here is that the future will be like the past).

g,you use the mathematical analogy and the term”sweet spot”. i did not see the entire clipbut i think you are referring to the “knife’sedge” imagery that the professor used. i thinkhis reference is more accurate as it brings tomind butchery. let’s face it, times are toughand the slicing and dicing and butchery thatensues relates to the idea of “systemic importance”.institutional leaders think in these terms.systemic function and survival. if the systemand its functioning are dysfunctional “they” willnot “see” it. they will find a way to “imagine”,project, speculate a semi rational way to proceedthat projects the system status quo into the future.the question becomes what is the basic functional unitthat needs to be coddled? and what can be thrown to the wolves after it has been thoroughly infused with thecruelty of the knife’s edge? a potential or ongoingdebate.but it seems like nonsense and subterfuge all imaginedto distract from the blatant thievery and raiding ofpublic treasure in the name of systemic, fraud, continuity / continuance..the past is the key to the present but it isextremely difficult to “know” the “past” whenwe are not entirely privy to the ongoing present.it takes a multitude of perspectives to have anymeaningful insight into the past or the present and all this complexity will determine the future but how to properly prioritize and integrate? so we are left with principles and their creative violations / improvements?broadly speaking, we are broke. also, a fewyears ago many people thought they were rich onlyto find that, a few elections and crisis’ later,their “wealth” needed to be transferred tobetter connected parties to maintain systemically moreimportant dysfunctional imbalances?.urbanization, securitization and globalization arethree knifes in the air and juggling is hard and theblades are shinny and distracting, not to mentionour juggler is exhausted..ps. i’m losing the bubble analogy now. is everythingin life just a bubble waiting to pop, if so then weshould be able to find some value in bubbles? perhapsit is in the definitions. if you tell someone you robof the contents of his wallet that all you did was pophis bubble does that make it o.k.?bubble people? i feel like i live inside a bubble,we have become…, waiting to pop..just kiddin’ ?

Cross dresser! LOL

m,Immediately!

Well, like the “world” has any choice?FYI – This isn’t just a US phenomenon. The rest of the world ISN’T going to “recover.”

And, I’d add, HONEST communication! We’ve had plenty of communication, mostly dishonest (from TPTB)!

But we are talking ourselves into thinking it isI still can’t believe that you think that this is all a “confidence” issue, it is NOT!People are collectively feeling what is coming up.Your view of things isn’t the view of the average person. As such, I’d say that you are talking yourself into believing that it’s better than it actually is…But… thanks for shopping over here and pumping money into this crashing economy!

My personal favorite recession bottom indicator is when people start eating the geese that land in public parks. You just feed them and then quickly grab their necks.

The real priorities of the Fed:Bernanke has tied the integrity of our monetary base to these assets (GSE mortgages). The policy of the Fed and Treasury amounts to little more than obligating the public to defend the bondholders of mismanaged financial companies, and to absorb losses that should have been borne by irresponsible lenders. From my perspective, this is nothing short of an unconstitutional abuse of power, as the actions of the Fed (not to mention some of Geithner’s actions at the Treasury) ultimately have the effect of diverting public funds to reimburse private losses, even though spending is the specifically enumerated power of the Congress alone.http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc091116.htmThe country serves the banks. The banks serve themselves.

There’s a great post over on Zerohedge with a video of Steven Keene giving a lecture on the current debacle. One of the commenters also cited an excellent article by Keene, which shows that we are in a depression and why. Read “The Roving Cavaliers of Credit”. Keene has some great diagrams and clear explanations that show that the real problem is what he calls “credit money”, which is much more significant than fiat money (giving the lie to reactionary gold bug types who see fiat money as the great evil–their anger is off target). This article is a must read for anyone who really wants to get a handle on how the banking crisis got started and how Bernanke is barking up the wrong tree.http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2009/01/31/therovingcavaliersofcredit/One of the most interesting points he makes in the article is that banks loan money first and then search for reserves later. He also makes the important point that any economic theory should be able to account for past behavior and that neoclassical economics fails miserably in this respect. Kind of a variation on Popper’s falsifiability postulate for a valid scientific theory.When you come down to it Rubin and Phil Gramm would appear to be the main architect’s of this depression (with the blessing of Bill Clinton). I confess, I’ve always had a very negative gut reaction to both of them–something I could never rationally explain to myself. Premonition, perhaps?

Yours is not a mathematical argument. No harm done…

How do you know if the growth in initial claims for unemployment insurance has peaked ?There’s many occurences when it looked as if it had peaked (eg 1981, 2000, 2002) but then it reversed course a few months later and went to new highs…You’re correct to note a strong correlation between unemployement and initial claims, but I think it’s too early to call a peak on the growth in initial claims.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-futures-soar-to-record-as-dollar-drops-2009-11-18GOLD futures climbed to a record on Wednesday as the dollar fell against other major currencies…Didn’t most of the experts say gold would never hit 1200-1300?

agree-it is a tragedy that only those in power can routinely commit immoral, unfair and sometimes illegal acts and get away with it.

moron, you can keep your doom view to your pathetic life.

http://kunstler.com/blog/2009/11/dreams-die-hard.html.Dreams Die HardBy James Howard Kunstleron November 9, 2009 6:28 AM…..Reality unfolds emergently, and this ought to interest us. For instance, I have maintained for many years that we are approaching the twilight of the automobile age – and the implications of this for daily life in the USA are pretty large. For a long time, I had assumed that this change of circumstances would proceed from our problemswith the oil supply. But reality is sly. It has thrown two new plot twists into the story lately. America’s romance with cars may not founder just on the fuel supply question. It now appears that our problems with capital are so severe that far fewer people will be able to borrow money from banks to buy cars at the rate, and in the way, that the system has been organized to depend on. Our problems with capital are also depriving us of the ability to pay to fix the hypercomplex system of county roads, interstate highways, and even city streets that make motoring possible. What will we do?…Both factions of American political life indulge in the fiction of control. History is reality’s big brother. It is taking us someplace that we don’t want to go, so it will probably have to drag us there kicking and screaming. For starters, both reality and history will probably take us out to some woodshed of the national soul and beat the crap out of us. That could be a salutary thing, since the crap consists of all the lies we tell ourselves. Once we’re rid of all that, we may rediscover a few things left inside our collective identity that are worth regarding with real self-respect.

As always, for those who are interested, I have a new post up at The Light Of Day:http://medic-thelightofday.blogspot.com/2009/11/return-of-gold-standard.htmlStop in – coffee’s on…..

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/24961Twenty Years From Now, You Will Lie To Your ChildrenBarack Obama | George W. Bushby David Michael Green | November 14, 2009 – 2:30pm.Take a look at a video of George W. Bush speaking to the nation five or six years ago.Like a pop single from 1962 (or 2002, for that matter), it didn’t age very well.It’s astonishing that this transparently frightened man was the leader of the free world for eight years, and was given so much license to commit so much destruction.But, then, nothing seems to define our era quite so much as license.We give ourselves license to incur fantastic levels of national debt, and hand the bill to the next generation.We give ourselves license to invade other countries on the most patently bogus of pretexts, bringing disaster upon them and us…..It was bad enough that we lived for as long as we did at a greedy and unsustainable level, stealing from other peoples, from our environment, from brown and female workers, and even from our own children. But now it’s getting much, much worse.In twenty years those children are all too likely to be living poor, on a hostile planet, working long hours to pay down the sins of their fathers.And they might well be enraged, too, as they should be.A decade or two from now, if they confront their right-wing elders – gazing in anger and astonishment at the bottomless capacity of their parents’ selfishness – you can safely bet that their questions will be met with dissembling deception.Twenty years from now, regressives will lie to their children.We know this because those regressives are already lying today, covering their execrable crimes the only way possible.With deceit.

You are right that I should not call people names when they don’t agree with me. It is pointless and possibly harmful. I am frustrated that little seems to be getting done.It could be that there is an active dialog going on somewhere but I have heard little. I know there is some on high speed trains and there is some about our electric grid and a little about alternative energy. Considering that energy is the backbone of our civilization, the public face of these discussions seem rather pallid and inadequate in the face of our dilemma.Capitalism has its good points and its bad points and so far it is the best of the systems IMO. I believe it does need a strong representative government that represents the people’s interests for it to not be a run away train going off a cliff or a ravenous beast that eats its own seed and ends up with nothing but a pile of worthless fiat currency that no one wants.In a system as complex as ours, constant growth is not possible. Even stability is probably just a theoretical concept not attainable. Yet as the President’s chief of staff says, a crisis is an opportunity. We have multiple crisis ongoing and I disagree with the priorities. Energy security should be number one. A higher priority that terrorism, what ever that is. For with out secure stable energy prices, there can be no stability in any other prices or values.

Just as i predicted 3 months ago. i said it would be 20-30 Billion. All due to massive declines in state revenues from sales tax, real estate taxes and Buisness taxes. and this is on top of raising the state income tax rate, increasing the sales tax rate and many other fees. There is no recovery happening and things are gettign worse. many other states are finally relaizing they are quickly joining the California sinking ship.Reporting from Sacramento – Less than four months after California leaders stitched together a patchwork budget, a projected deficit of nearly $21 billion already looms over Sacramento, according to a report to be released today by the chief budget analyst.The new figure — the nonpartisan analyst’s first projection for the coming budget — threatens to send Sacramento back into budgetary gridlock and force more across-the-board cuts in state programs.The grim forecast, described by people who were briefed on the report by Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor, comes courtesy of California’s recession-wracked economy, unrealistic budgeting assumptions, spending cuts tied up in the courts and disappearing federal stimulus funds.”Economic recovery will not take away the very severe budget problems for this year, next year and the year after,” said Steve Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy.In fact, after two years of precipitous revenue declines, the new report projects relatively stable tax collections for the state, said those who were briefed. But that won’t stop the deficit from climbing to nearly $21 billion.Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who will present his next proposed budget to Californians in January as he begins his last year in office, started sounding the alarm last week.”I think that there will be across-the-board cuts again,” he said at a San Jose news conference.The task in 2010 could be even harder than it was this year, when record deficits and cash shortfalls drove California to issue IOUs for only the second time since the Great Depression. Lawmakers have already cut billions from education, healthcare and social services while temporarily hiking income, sales and vehicle taxes.”I can’t think of any good solutions,” said Assemblywoman Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa), who chairs the lower house budget committee.The current budget year accounts for $6.3 billion of the deficit, the nonpartisan analyst projects. Prisons spending will outstrip what has been budgeted by more than $1 billion, and K-12 schools were underpaid by $1 billion under the complex formula that governs education funding, the report says.Another $14.4 billion of the deficit is for the fiscal year that begins next summer, say those briefed on the report. The governor’s next budget will have to account for both years.The state Department of Finance in August predicted a shortfall of at least $7.4 billion for fiscal 2010-11. But California’s financial picture has darkened considerably since then, largely because the shaky summer budget pact relied heavily on borrowing, fiscal tricks and overly optimistic projections.It assumed receipts of nearly $1 billion from the federal government for Medi-Cal that the analyst questions. Another $1 billion was assumed from the sale of a quasi-public workers’ compensation agency that has stalled.Next year’s budget fight is expected to be as contentious as this year’s. Republicans vow to block new taxes; Democrats say they are through with program cuts.Powerful interest groups are already girding for battle.”There is no more to cut from our schools,” California Teachers Assn. President David Sanchez said Tuesday. “There is no more meat on this bone. . . . The next step is amputation.”In higher education, Chancellor Charles Reed of the Cal State University system said this month that he will plead for $884 million in funds from Sacramento next year. The University of California will ask for $913 million more for its 10-campus system, President Mark Yudof has said.”If ever there was a time to fight for and invest in the institution best positioned to power this state from recession, now is that time,” Yudof said in a statement. UC students, meanwhile, are coping with a staggering 32% fee hike.California’s finances have been so bad that the governor’s finance director, Mike Genest, told a budget forum in Washington last week that back in February he had combed through the U.S. Constitution to research whether California could legally declare bankruptcy — or revert to some kind of territorial status. (Neither was realistic, he determined.)The state’s financial problems predate the current recession and the gimmicks used to paper over the deficit, experts say. Year in and year out, state government spends roughly $10 billion more than it collects in tax revenue.Political divisions in Sacramento, where support from both parties is necessary to pass a budget, have repeatedly stymied efforts to plug that hole. The task probably won’t be easier next year as various interests try to muscle one another to the sidelines.Some have even drafted potential ballot measures to aid themselves in the budget fight and are preparing to collect signatures in an effort to place the initiatives before voters.Among the ideas: raising tobacco taxes, curbing public pensions, repealing corporate tax breaks passed thisyear and last, splitting the tax rules for commercial and residential property, reducing the legislative votes needed to pass a budget and strengthening the firewall around local government and transportation money.”There’s a lot of people putting chess pieces on the board right now,” said Jon Coupal, president of the anti-tax Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. “The question is which of those chess pieces will be moving.”shane.goldmacher@latimes.comCopyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

Gotta watch the Video… Bernake is an idiot. the proof on what he sees happening and what reality is, comes in words right out of his mouth 3 years ago when he said there was “No Problem”.anyone gettign the feeling that something big will be happening after XMAS? they are doing everythign they can to get through the end of 2009, but early 2010 things are goign to get very bad, far worse then msot can imagine…Bernanke vs. Meredith Whitneyhttp://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/11/bernanke-vs-meridith-whitney.html?ref=patrick.netThe man that never saw it coming can’t see it coming again. Please consider Bernanke Says ‘Not Obvious’ Asset Prices Misaligned.Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said it’s “not obvious” that asset prices in the U.S. are out of line with underlying values after a 64 percent jump in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index from its March low.“It is inherently extraordinarily difficult to know whether an asset’s price is in line with its fundamental value,” he said today in response to audience questions after a speech in New York. “It’s not obvious to me in any case that there’s any large misalignments currently in the U.S. financial system.”“The best approach here if at all possible is to use supervisory and regulatory methods to restrain undue risk-taking and to make sure the system is resilient in case an asset-price bubble bursts in the future,” Bernanke said.If that was the best approach then why didn’t the Fed do it?On the possibility of using interest rates to pop bubbles, “we can never say never,” Bernanke said today. “We have to keep an open mind.”It’s hard to keep an open mind when it is closed to anything but academic formulas and Keynesian and Monetarist claptrap that has no real life application.The most ridiculous thing Bernanke said was “the Fed is ‘attentive’ to changes in the dollar’s value and “will help ensure that the dollar is strong.”There is not a person on the planet that believes that.Indeed, every time I hear Bernanke speak I wonder the same thing….Bernanke: Why are we still listening to this guy?The following video should make people think twice about listening to anything that Chairmen of the Fed Ben Bernanke says. It’s a compilation of statements he made from 2005-2007 that will have your head spinning.Meredith Whitney Calls For Double Dip RecessionMeredith Whitney says Stocks Overvalued, Recession Will Return.Stocks are overvalued and the US economy is likely to fall back into a recession next year, well-known analyst Meredith Whitney told CNBC.”I haven’t been this bearish in a year,” she said in a live interview. “I look at the board and every single stock from Tiffany (TIF) to Bank of America (BAC) to Caterpillar (CAT) is up. But there is no fundamental rooting as to why these names are up—particularly in the consumer space.”I am disappointed in one thing: Her comments about sideline cash were silly. Please see “Buy The Dip” Mentality Fully Entrenched for a discussion of sideline cash.She is right on several things:The US consumer was going through the biggest credit contraction ever—even bigger than that during the Great Depression. “That credit contraction is accelerating,” she said. “There’s nowhere to hide at this point.”The banking sector is not adequately capitalized and will need to raise more capital in the coming year.The residential real estate market is likely to worsen and remains a much bigger threat than the commercial property market. The government’s mortgage modification program won’t result in any major improvement in homeowners’ ability to stay above water, she added.Mike “Mish” Shedlockhttp://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Again, who are these so called experts who always explain bad news as unexpected? why not jsut open your eyes and deal with reality? this is why mainstream press cannot be beleived…New home building is vitually non-existant. Home building companies are dead companies walking. there will be no recvovery in new home building for well over 10 years. with over 20 million unoccupied housing units avialable there is no need for New Home building for the msot part. So there goes another whole industry and all the JOBS that go with it. No JOBS continues. BTW even if there was demand for new homes, who could afford them? Who could borrow to buy them? Not all the people presently unemployed and not all the emmployed people taking pay cuts and dealing with rising prices on the stuff they really need like food, energy, gas, water…Housing Starts in U.S. Unexpectedly Plunge 11% (Update2)Share Business ExchangeTwitterFacebook| Email | Print | A A A By Shobhana ChandraNov. 18 (Bloomberg) — Builders in October unexpectedly broke ground on fewer U.S. houses as the sales outlook darkened with the looming expiration of a government tax credit and mounting joblessness.The 11 percent plunge in starts to an annual rate of 529,000, the lowest level since April, followed a 592,000 pace the prior month, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. Building permits, a sign of future construction, also decreased.The market may have seized up as builders waited to see if the administration would extend a first-time buyer incentive that helped lift sales. President Barack Obama signed legislation this month to include some current owners, which may give companies such as Toll Brothers Inc. reason to gain optimism even as the highest unemployment rate in 26 years shakes confidence.“The numbers are shocking,” said Patrick Newport, an economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts, who forecast starts would drop. The decline “represents a payback for the tax credit, which induced builders to build earlier.”Stock-index futures dropped after the report, erasing earlier gains. The contract on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was down 0.1 percent at 1,106.1 at 8:56 a.m. in New York.A separate report from the Labor Department today showed the cost of living rose at a pace that supports the Federal Reserve’s forecast for tame inflation. The 0.3 percent rise in the consumer-price index followed a 0.2 percent increase in September. Excluding food and energy costs, the core index rose 0.2 percent for a second month.Economists’ ForecastsStarts on dwellings were projected to rise to a 600,000 annual pace, after 590,000 in September, according to the median forecast of 77 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Estimates ranged from 570,000 to 630,000.Permits, a sign of future construction, dropped to a 552,000 annual pace last month from 575,000. They were forecast to climb to a 580,000 annual rate, according to the survey median.Construction of single-family houses, which account for 75 percent of the industry, decreased 6.8 percent to a 476,000 rate, today’s report showed.Work on multifamily homes, such as townhouses and apartment buildings, plunged 35 percent to an annual rate of 53,000 that was the lowest on record.The decrease in starts was led by a 19 percent slump in the Northeast. All four regions declined.Tax Credit ExtendedConstruction may further improve after President Barack Obama and Congress extended a tax credit of as much as $8,000 for first-time homebuyers until April 30, from Nov. 30. They also expanded it to include some current owners.Concern over the looming expiration of the credit earlier this month weighed on builder sentiment. The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo’s confidence index held at 17 in November for a second month, the group said yesterday.Some companies are already seeing a turn. Toll Brothers, the largest U.S. luxury homebuilder, last week said orders surged 42 percent in the quarter ended Oct. 31. The Horsham, Pennsylvania-based company also said cancellations slowed and revenue beat analysts’ estimates.Consumer ConfidenceGains in consumer confidence, more stable home prices and fewer unsold houses “suggest that the new home market should be improving,” Chief Executive Officer Robert Toll said in a statement. “We sense that it is, though slowly and through choppy waters.”A sustained rebound still requires an improvement in the job market. The median estimate of economists surveyed this month anticipated unemployment, which reached a 26-year high of 10.2 percent last month, will top 10 percent through the first half of 2010.Foreclosure filings exceeded 300,000 for an eighth straight month in October as rising joblessness made it tougher for homeowners to pay their bills, RealtyTrac Inc. said last week.To contact the reporter on this story: Shobhana Chandra in Washington schandra1@bloomberg.netLast Updated: November 18, 2009 08:58 EST

I predicited he would be at 35% by this XMAS back last January when he was high 60′s. probaly will be around 43-46 now, but come Spring he’ll hit 35% and continue dropping all the way to his re-election attempt.Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama’s approval rating has fallen below 50 percent for the first time in polling by Quinnipiac University as U.S. voter discontent grows over the war in Afghanistan.Obama’s job approval rating fell to 48 percent in the Nov. 9-16 survey of registered voters nationwide by the Hamden, Connecticut-based university, with 42 percent polled saying they disapproved of the job he is doing.“In politics, symbols matter, and this is not a good symbol for the White House,” Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a statement.Obama’s approval rating was 59 percent in a Quinnipiac survey conducted Feb. 25 to March 2.The percentage of people who approve of Obama’s handling of the economy fell to 43 percent, down from 47 percent in an October Quinnipiac poll.The percentage who say they disapprove of the way Obama is handling the war in Afghanistan rose to 49 percent in the latest survey, up from 42 percent last month. Thirty-eight percent approved of his handling of the war, compared with 40 percent last month.The November survey of 2,518 registered voters also found that the percentage of those saying that fighting the war in Afghanistan was the right thing to do has fallen below 50 percent, to 48 percent. That is down from 52 percent in October.

As the color of shoots goes from green to brown, so goes the color of Obama’s hair from black to grey.

Good points- unfortunately, there is no place in our leaders decisions for clear, logical, fair and rational policies that benefit 99% of the people-at least not in this “demon acracy.” Do they really care when billions are given to the TBTFs while a fraction of that would solve all hunger in the U.S.?

How come you are unable to write a single sentence without inflammatory (high-school level) remarks? You’re nothing but a punk; now go away, I think I hear your mother calling…

Or his skin color goes from brown to green (sick/ill) Doesn’t matter what face is on the dying empire, it’s still dying…

I have no conclusive proof, but there are indications and some “whistleblower” information that the government economic data is reviewed before publication, and if it is the opinion of the reviewer that the data would cause panic in the marketplace, it is “adjusted” appropriately.For example, previously adjusted data is often adjusted when it is a month or so old (not necessary to the “true” value, but in the true direction). Usually, the old data is adjusted downward. Nobody pays much attention, because it’s old data. This also has the affect of making the current data (which may or may not be “adjusted”) look better, as there is usually more “inprovement” using the newly readjusted data.