Economy
Even the mainstream media, this time the Associated Press, is beginning to find the familiar economic narrative peculiar: “It’s very unusual,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “At this point in the business cycle, we should be seeing some sort of labor force growth. Layoffs have abated, but there really has been no…
Do you think there comes a point at which people simply stop listening to measurements? As the latest national unemployment numbers rolled out, one certainly got the impression that the news was positive, that recovery is just around the corner. Yet: U.S. payrolls unexpectedly fell in January, but the unemployment rate surprisingly dropped to a…
Alright, so it’s not the most compelling or sympathetic example, but this is as good an instance as any of the ways in which middle-class-and-down Americans translate money (especially taxes): Americans’ love affair with top-shelf booze cooled last year as the recession took a toll on high-priced tipples. A new report by an industry group…
Perhaps it should no longer be surprising, but it is: Spelling out painful priorities, President Barack Obama urged Congress on Monday to quickly approve a huge new shot of spending for recession relief and job creation, part of a record $3.8 trillion budget that would boost the deficit beyond any in the nation’s history while…
We’ve argued multiple times, ’round here, that the federal government’s approach to “stimulus” — especially as defined by President Obama — was not, in fact, designed to stimulate the economy and yield job growth. Rather it was designed to insulate government structures from the effects of an economic recession… at the expense of the economy.…
Rep. John Carter (R, TX) has posted a chart illustrating the depth and time to recovery of various recessions throughout recent U.S. history. The upshot is that the current recession has seen the largest drop in employment since 1948 and has been falling for as long as almost all job troughs have lasted, from start…
Kevin Williamson notes an unfamiliar state of affairs: It’s a world gone mad: The Euro-welfarized ‘Nucks are hard at work, their wages up 2.3 percent year over year, while the Aussies, who have a 45 percent top rate for personal income taxes plus a 5 percent payroll tax, are booming. But the rugged individualists toiling…
Charles Gasparino explains the mechanics of our jobless economic recovery: The issue is strikingly similar to what the banks face. As we’re all aware, the banks are making big money and waiting to pay out bonuses in the coming days. But the cash isn’t coming from lending the money out. Instead, the banks are cutting…
As economic units is perhaps the last way in which clergy should consider human beings, but it’s worth their while, on prudential matters, to take into account the ways in which economic principles affect charitable intentions. Unfortunately, in the quotation that Ed Fitzpatrick recently utilized, I fear Roman Catholic priest John Kiley has the mechanism…
Over at the FrumForum (a moderate Republican blog run by David Frum) Eli Lehrer explains: Many of the biggest budget items for states—Medicaid, bond payments, pension obligations to retirees—are virtually impossible to reduce. Big , broad-based tax increases, although difficult to avoid under many states’ balanced budget laws, will simply discourage investment and growth. Without…