Posts Tagged ‘economy’
Thanks to Wikicommons.
It’s spring again! Flowers are blooming, the sky is blue, the birds are out singing, and the US Democrazy staff is stuck inside attempting to win next years Pulitzer Prize (since we failed to this year).
Sadly, the economy isn’t matching the weather; or is it? Perhaps economic “green shoots” are starting to blossom?
With the Dow Jones Industrial average closing above 11,000 yesterday, the first time in 18 months, many voices are coming out declaring we’ve defeated the economic collapse.
Thanks to Wikicommons.
Candles, cake, and intense political debate, what else would anyone want for their first birthday? Especially if that special someone is the Federal economic stimulus bill!
Now, like most birthday celebrations (except for ours which you forgot) a variety of “gifts” and “wishes” have been flying in.
Led by President Obama, folks are trumpeting the stimulus as a success.
But for all the birthday cheer, there was also a load of Bronx cheers.
Some are questioning whether the bill actually helped the economy, particularly Republicans (who didn’t approve of the stimulus from day one). …read more.
Stand up, sit down, applaud, guffaw, chuckle, smirk, repeat…for one hour.
That pretty much describe how the folks in the Senate chamber reacted to the State of the Union address last night.
If you were sleeping listening to the President’s speech, you heard a lot of talk and a lot of promises… But what does it all mean?
We’ve found some pretty good analysis of the big event to help answer that question (And make you sound incredibly informed during the discussion at the water fountain/cooler today).
Some of the best commentary came via live blogs and Tweets. Catch up on what we had to say on Twitter in case you missed it! Some other great Tweets:
From the political satirist @BorowitzReport: Instant Poll: 90% of Republicans Who Did Not See Obama’s Speech Disagree With It
Getting to the point is @PatrickRuffini: This change stuff is HARD #shortersotu
Political analyst @marcambinder indicates a positive response to the address: CBS Instapoll: approve of the proposals? 83% said yes. Obama has same priorities as you have? (57% to 73% in sample from pre to post)
So, it’s not a secret, the US has some debt.
Not like “oops I overdrew this month” debt, more like a $1.35 TRILLION deficit for the coming year.
The latest attempt to decrease this depressing disaster comes from the President. President Obama will seek a three-year freeze on some domestic spending.
Let both sides of the political aisle prepare their mud catapults! We’ve got the rundown…
credit: Pixar
At USDemocrazy, we scour the Internet, compiling news stories that we find insightful, hilarious or just plain interesting. Today, during our hard work (OK, we might have been playing Solitaire too), we found some stories from the business world – stories that suggest that the economy is doing better!
First up, Ebay reported growth in earnings for the last quarter and the world’s most famous coffee shop, Starbucks, saw its revenue get a caffeine jolt upwards.
Then, we read the GREAT news that Bank of America was increasing their employees’ paychecks. (Our editors could use a lesson from them!) Wall Street company Morgan Stanley is also spending more money on payroll, recently adding more workers.
Finally, Amazon introduced a plan to pay authors and publishers a greater percentage from their Kindle e-book sales.
Of course, we’re no economic experts (some most would say we’re not experts on anything), but during this time when a lot of folks are suffering, it’s good to hear there is SOME good economic news out there!
If we at USDemocrazy want to see a good cat fight, we turn on Animal Planet.
Last Sunday, we saw TV cat fights involving lions, tigers and even President Obama!
That’s right, on Sunday President Obama had his catty claws out. In an interview he referred to America’s Wall Street bankers as a bunch of “fat cats”.
To make the name calling worse, it was only a day before Mr. Obama was scheduled to meet with these very same top bankers.
What was this meeting about (clearly not another friendly beer summit)? …read more.
With so much concern still surrounding the Economy these days, we at USDemocrazy thought it would be time for a good laugh.
So we have turned to satirist and comedian Harry Shearer (who has provided voices for multiple characters from “The Simpsons) for some inspired video. In the film above, he takes Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and puts words in his mouth. We hope you enjoy the results!
Thanks to Wikicommons
Imagine for a moment someone owes you money (sounds familiar?) and then they tell you they may be, um… a little late paying it back (sounds rather too familiar?).
Now imagine that debtor is Dubai World, a company owned by the oil- rich emirate of Dubai (one of seven emirates, similar to states in the US) that makes up the United Arab Emirates.
Now imagine they owe you the hefty sum of $59 BILLION DOLLARS. (Yes, that’s BILLION). …read more.
Image via tech.spreadit.org
In Line for Gifts: Were you standing in a line at the mall at 3AM this past Friday? Statistics show that despite an 8% decrease in the average Black-Friday purchase, sales were greater than last year’s.
In Line for Stamps: As a result of rough economic times, one in eight Americans relies on food stamps. Because of this, the stigma on federal aid is starting to go away.
In Line for the Ax?: Some people believe that the new GOP “Purity Test” will have some unintended consequences.
A New line of work: With the legalization of medicinal marijuana, many are turning towards its cultivation as a source of wealth in jobless markets. One Michigan 24-year-old has opened the first “School of Pot” to teach how to grow and administer this “new” medicine.
We at USDemocrazy do not have money problems. We have no money…no money, no problems.
Still, we have enormous respect for those who can manage huge sums of money on an awesome scale. So for this week’s Awesome Sites we are sharing links to World-wide wonders that manage mega-money. …read more.
Money, thanks wikicommons!
Some of us here at USDemocrazy don’t trust banks and instead choose to keep money under our mattresses (and believe us, these mattresses need all the padding they can get).
Still, despite an uncertain economy gripping the country most folks still rely on banks and other institutions to manage their funds.
So, as a follow-up to last week’s post about how money is spent by the U.S. government, we decided to explore how America’s money is managed. …read more.
Thanks to Wikicommons!
During our weekly web surfing-safaris, We at USDemocrazy stumble upon mountains of curious tidbits (as well as mountain RANGES of boring pap).
Today we’d like to share a small handful of short tasty news snackeroos with you…starting with The Daily Show…
Apparently, the first heckler ever (video here) appeared, uninvited on The Daily Show. The gentleman chowderhead yelled “Liar!” (1:17 into the video) and other phrases at the guests on the show during a discussion about peace between Israel and Palestine. Naturally, he “had to go” (see 8:11 into the video) – an audience member posted that the man was escorted from the crowd.
Watch TRAILER: Michael Moore’s ‘Capitalism: A Love Story’ – TV Spot in Comedy | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
Moore’s back and as controversial as ever, read the review of Capitalism: A love story
How do you say Nets in Russian? Russia’s richest man buys Americas worst basketball team
When in doubt impeach the leader. One blogger speculates on the Republican idea to impeach Obama
Thanks to Wikicommons.
We at US Democrazy love a full plate (especially on Thanksgiving) but President Obama seems to have taken (or rather been given) more than his share of problems.
To help you keep track, we have a maddening menu of Obama’s plate full of problems. …read more.
Thanks to Wikicommons.
Good news folks! President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timmy Geithner have Got the answer!
So… what is the question you ask?
The question is: How the heck are we going to fix for America’s sputtering economy? (as if US Democrazy did not have enough to write about with Iran’s election and gay rights).
On Wednesday the White House released their proposal (a whopping 88 page document, big problems need big solutions).
Now don’t worry if you have not had time to read it (it’s currently being used to level a desk in the USDemocrazy office) as any reforms that get passed will need congressional approval.
It was for this reason Geithner gave Capital Hill a visit. There, in special hearings he faced down cantankerous congressional questioners armed only with a microphone. He faired reasonably well to the grilling (he didn’t even break his ankle) but there were skeptics of the plan.
One major point of objection to the White House’s plan realted to the Federal Reserve (also called the “Fed” by its fans and “Fed Up” by its detractors).
The new plan would greatly increase the power of the Federal Reserve to regulate business. Democratic Senator Christopher J. Dodd inquired if the increased power for the Federal Reserve was “like a parent giving his son a bigger, faster car right after he crashed the family station wagon”. (nice analogy)
Another critique, voiced here by Will Cohan at the Daily Beast, is that the plan does not provide a long term solution and that
A lasting fix will come only when the top 100 or so highest-paid executives at each of these firms—regardless of whether they remain TARPed or TARP-free—have some serious skin in the game, along the lines of their entire net worth.
So what do they mean by skin in the game?
NPR gives us the skinny on the term. Essentially it is this: During the lead up to the sub-prime mortgage collapse, banks were handing loans out like hot cakes (and not very good hot cakes).
The banks would take those loans, repackage them and sell them to others (as mortgage backed securities). The banks no longer owned own these loans and thus having no vested interest (i.e. skin in the game) as to whether or not the loans defaulted.
And… of course many loans did default leaving us with the current financial mess.
In addition to the hot cakes there was plenty of hot air being pointed at the new plan.
Howard Glaser, at the Huffington Post, believes
the proposed overhaul is, by and large, in the best interests not only of consumers of financial products, but the financial companies themselves, their shareholders, and investors.
and wonders if
the industry know a good deal when it sees one?
So how will this proposal look when it gets out of Congress? Who knows and we’ll have to just wait and see (and knowing how fast Congress is this could be quite a long time).
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Never mind waiting, I hate waiting (and they say TV shortens ones attention span)! Why don’t our faithful readers post up what they think of this plan and what should be done (please hurry as I’m also waiting for your replies to our other posts).
