Economy

Reading the news today, I came across an NPR article that I believe captured the political mood in the U.S. rather well.  While the stress of the article is on disillusionment from Obama’s base of supporters, I believe much the same…

Markets were disappointed by today’s unemployment data because they reveal how difficult it has been for the employment situation to improve in a meaningful way. The employment market is improving, just not as much as one would hope. Below…

The forecast was for 10.1% unemployment and a gain of +15,000 jobs according to Market Watch, but 10.0% unemployment and a flat non-farm payroll number according to Bloomberg. As a reminder, ADP reported the private sector shed 84,000 jobs,…

Damaging e-mails have revealed that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner urged AIG to withhold crucial information about the deterioration of its financial condition in the lead up to its demise.  This will put further political…

For those of you who want specifics. Kleptocracy as defined in Wikipedia: Kleptocracy, alternatively cleptocracy or kleptarchy, from Greek kleptes (thieve) and kratos (rule), is a term applied to a government that takes advantage of…

I want to talk about the drubbing the Democrats are going to take in this year’s elections and what it means, if anything.  As a sort of pre-amble, I will lead into this with some thoughts on tax cut propaganda and today’s piece by the…

This comes from the up until New Year’s aptly-titled “News from 1930” website.  It’s now really News from 1931 as it chronicles news during the Great Depression from exactly 79 years ago to the day. US car and truck exhibitors at…

Employees of US states and cities have much better pension plans than do Average Americans and this is creating some serious budgetary problems, one reason to be very careful in assessing municipal bonds, particularly general revenue ones.…

Marshall Auerback here with a commentary on Robert Rubin’s recent Newsweek article on getting the economy back on track. As we all know, during his tenure as Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin laid the groundwork for today's crisis through…

The December 2009 Manufacturing ISM Report On Business was released earlier today showing a reading of 55.9, the highest in nearly four years. This is the most recent of the many indicators demonstrating that the U.S. economy is in a…