Tag Archives: Depression

News

Obama: private sector job creation is “doing fine”

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From CNS News.

Excerpt:

“The private sector is doing fine,” Obama said at a press conference on Friday. “Where we’re seeing weaknesses in our economy, have to do with state and local government — oftentimes, cuts initiated by governors or mayors who are not getting the kind of help that they have in the past from the federal government and who don’t have the same kind of flexibility as the federal government in dealing with fewer revenues coming in.”

State and local leaders were not the only ones to blame for a bad economy, as the president also blamed Republicans in Congress.

What are the facts? Is Obama right?

Here is a comparison of public and private pay in Ohio, for example:

Ohio Average Pay: Public vs. Private
Ohio Average Pay: Public vs. Private

Does Obama know how to create jobs? Let’s compare him to Bush:

Labor Force Participation 2012 (click for larger image)
Labor Force Participation 2012 (click for larger image)

There is no recovery. We haven’t created any jobs. We’ve actually lost 5 million jobs since the Democrats took over the House and Senate in January 2007.

When George W. Bush was President, we had unemployment around 4 or 5 percent for 8 years, which deficits as low as $160 billion in 2007. Barack Obama has had four budget deficits of a trillion or more in a row, and his unemployment rate has been double Bush’s rate. Bush has an MBA from Harvard and had private sector job creation experience. Obama doesn’t know anything about economics. He’s a lawyer who benefited from affirmative action, and who has never released his grades. You can’t elect an unqualified person and get performance.

News

Greeks withdraw $894 million from Greek banks in one day

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I found this article from MSNBC on The Other McCain.

Excerpt:

Political leaders in Athens were due to discuss an emergency government Wednesday to deal with a possible run on banks as it emerged Greeks withdrew almost $900 million in a single day, fearing their country could crash out of the euro currency by the end of the week.

An interim government would take the country through to new elections on June 17, triggered by the collapse on Tuesday of talks to form a coalition between winners of the inconclusive May 6 election.

Greeks are withdrawing euros from banks, apparently afraid of the prospect of rapid devaluation if the country leaves the European single currency and returns to the drachma.

President Karolos Papoulias warned of “great fear that could develop into a panic,” the minutes of Papoulias’ negotiations with political leaders showed, according to Reuters.

[…]Several banking sources told Reuters similar amounts had also been withdrawn on Tuesday. Nevertheless, there was no sign of panic or queues at bank branches in Athens on Wednesday. Bankers dismissed suggestions that a bank run was looming. A senior executive at a large Greek bank told Reuters: “There is no bank run, no queues or panic. The situation is better than I expected. The amount of deposit withdrawals the president mentioned referred to three days, not one.”

[…]Greeks have already been withdrawing their savings from banks at a sharp clip – nearly a third of bank deposits were withdrawn between January 2010 and March 2012, reducing total Greek household and business deposits to 165 billion euros.

What I find really striking about stories like this is that Greece just had an election. 75% of them want to stay in the European Union and keep the Euro as a currency. But that can only happen if they accept that they are spending too much and they are not producing anything. They have to cut spending, lower taxes and deregulate so that there is economic growth. So what did they do? They voted against austerity. They think that by refusing to meet the conditions of the people who can bail them out, that they will get a bailout. It’s just insane. Like whipping a thirsty camel with the expectation that whipping can somehow satiate its thirst and cause it to get up and keep moving.

News

Fitch cuts credit ratings on 6 more European nations

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From Zero Hedge.

Excerpt:

Fitch Ratings-London-27 January 2012: Fitch Ratings has today concluded its review of the six eurozone sovereigns it placed on Rating Watch Negative (RWN) on 16 December 2011.

The rating actions on the long-term (LT) and short-term (ST) Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) are as follows:

-Belgium LT IDR downgraded to ‘AA’ from ‘AA+’; Negative Outlook; ST IDR affirmed at ‘F1+’
-Cyprus LT IDR downgraded to ‘BBB-‘ from ‘BBB’; Negative Outlook; ST IDR affirmed at ‘F3’
-Ireland LT IDR affirmed at ‘BBB+’; Negative Outlook; ST IDR affirmed at ‘F2’
-Italy LT IDR downgraded to ‘A-‘ from ‘A+’; Negative Outlook; ST IDR downgraded to ‘F2’ from ‘F1’
-Slovenia LT IDR downgraded to ‘A’ from ‘AA-‘; Negative Outlook; ST IDR downgraded to ‘F1’ from ‘F1+’
– Spain LT IDR downgraded ‘A’ from ‘AA-‘; Negative Outlook; ST IDR downgraded to ‘F1’ from ‘F1+’

All the ratings have been removed from RWN, with the Negative Outlook on all six countries indicating a slightly greater than 50% chance of a downgrade over a two-year time horizon.

[…]The Negative Outlooks on eight eurozone countries (the six sovereigns in this review along with ‘AAA’-rated France and ‘BB+’-rated Portugal) primarily reflect the risk that the crisis could intensify further.

Now consider that Barack Obama is taking us down the same road as these European welfare states. The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money. That’s what is happening in Europe, and it’s going to happen here, unless we get serious about who we elect as President.

My previous post on S&P downgrades of the credit ratings of various European countries.