If This Coronavirus Hasn't Concerned You Yet, To Date, This Could. Maybe Should

Wonder why the Dow and markets keep sinking, crashing, day after day for the last few weeks?

This might be it.

Coronavirus could force the world into an unprecedented depression

A bit from the article:

In its latest repricing of the economy, the market sees the now-expected global recession caused by the coronavirus outbreak morphing into an economic depression unlike any the world has seen in generations.

The big picture: Bankers and traders are looking to sell everything that isn't nailed down to boost cash positions and hunker down for the worst.

What they're saying:

• JPMorgan wrote down its expectations for global GDP to -1.1% in 2020, expecting the world's economic growth will reverse for the full year, including a second quarter contraction of -14% in the U.S. and -22% in the eurozone.
• Deutsche Bank economists foresee a "severe global recession occurring in the first half of 2020 ... quarterly declines in GDP growth we anticipate substantially exceed anything previously recorded going back to at least World War II."
• Both banks noted their forecasts are based on governments putting in place massive, yet-to-be-passed fiscal stimulus programs and fairly swift containment of the outbreak.
• "It is easy to imagine a still worse outcome," DB analysts, led by head of economics research Peter Hooper and seven chief economists, wrote.

The most dire warning came from Pershing Square Capital Management CEO Bill Ackman, who went on CNBC to beg President Trump to shut down the U.S. economy for 30 days and put the country in a nationwide lockdown.

"Until a vaccine is manufactured, distributed and injected we will go through a Depression-era period in the country," Ackman said. "America will end as we know it unless we take this option."

And here I was just anxious about the conornavirus.

Silly me.

Thank goodness we have good, strong leadership coming out of the White House and this Republican Party President and his administration.

Right?

Link:

The coronavirus economic pain in the U.S. has begun

The American Economy: How We Got To Here

What Americans need to know about our nation and economy, from an economist.

Senator Blunt Said WHAT???

Last evening, the following was typed onto Missouri Senator Roy Blunt's Facebook page:

Missouri is at the center of our nation’s highway, railway, and waterway transportation networks, which makes infrastructure an integral part of our state’s economy. Infrastructure creates jobs, connects people and communities, and enables us to compete globally. I’ll keep working to ensure that investing in our nation’s infrastructure remains a priority this week during ‪#‎InfrastructureWeek‬ and every week. ‪#‎RebuildRenew‬

I have to tell you, I was stunned.

Thrilled but stunned.

For all these years, no Republican member of Congress since at least 2008 has written or sponsored or proposed any infrastructure or jobs/infrastructure bill.

Not one.

Including, of course, Senator Roy Blunt.

So here, after all this time of we Americans needing jobs and our infrastructure needing work and updates and improvements and the economy---God knows--needing the boost, suddenly there's this statement, this recognition that we need some things done to our nation's highways, railways, waterway transportation networks, our bridges, all that?

Knock me down with a feather.

And call me skeptical, at the same time.

Sure, I hope Senator Blunt puts his legislative work where his mouth--or keyboard--is but I just find it difficult to believe he'll finally, finally do the right thing for the American people and for the nation and do just that---write, propose and at least try to get passed a jobs/infrastructure bill.

There can be no better example of a highway that needs updating and improving than Missouri's own stretch of Interstate 70 from Illinois and St. Louis to the East, through the middle of the state and Columbia, all the way to Kansas City and Kansas to the West. It's outdated, it's narrow, heck, it's even downright dangerous to the point of lethal, repeatedly.

However right and good it is for the nation and people, it seems the last thing Senator Blunt or his Republican Party wants to do is have more Americans working and America with a better economy while this person of the other political party is in the White House, nation be damned.

God, I'd love to be wrong.

So here's hoping. Here's hoping our own Missouri Senator Roy Blunt and all his Republican colleagues finally see the light, as it were, and do what's good and right and needed and necessary for the people and the economy and the infrastructure of the country.

I don't think they will but it could happen.

Again, here's hoping.

Obama bad for America?

Really?

Why we so desperately need a jobs/infrastructure bill from this Congress

"The global economy is more precarious right now than it's been since 2008. China's growth is slowing precipitously, Europe is on the very of recession or deflation, Japan is barely growing, and the United States cannot maintain sufficient aggregate demand without a larger and more buoyant middle class. Interest rates are rock-bottom. Under these circumstances, you might expect governments to borrow more to stimulate their economies. But Germany in the eurozone, and Republicans in the U.S., are still insisting on austerity." 

--Robert Reich

Instead, there is the desire on the part of one political party, quite frankly, the Republicans, to put their own party and their success ahead of that of the nation, people and economy be damned. 

We all know that. 

Why else would they totally avoid an infrastructure/jobs bill from this or the last Congress when the American people need the jobs? the infrastructure needs the updating and improving and the economy needs the boost? They don't want this president or his political party to gain any "points" or to be perceived as having any success so screw you, America.

Flash from the past

I love that:  "WORLD'S HIGHEST STANDARD OF LIVING"

Funny thing, we still tell ourselves that today.

Then and now (guest post)

"Let me see if I have this straight:

George W. Bush allowed Osama bin Laden to kill 3,000 American citizens, lied us into a war that killed an additional 4,500 plus 100,000 Iraqis, empowered the Iranians, made the rich richer and the poor poorer, tanked the economy, used illegal, medieval torture tactics, and failed to capture bin Laden. And the Democrats never once considered impeaching him.

But Barack Obama skips into town, kills Osama bin Laden, saves the American car industry, halved the deficit, triples the stock market, cuts unemployment in half, outlaws torture, brings affordable healthcare to almost ten million people, all without a SMIDGEN of help from the Republicans...and now they're suing him and thinking about impeaching him. 

Do I have that right?"

--Bruce Lindner

Why we need a jobs/infrastructure bill from this Congress (guest post)

And we need a jobs/infrastructure bill badly.  And as soon as possible.

From Robert Reich's Facebook page today:

Republicans call any measure that lifts wages or protects workers and the environment a “job killer.” 

This is pure bunk. 

(1) Even if such measures increase business costs, most companies can afford them without reducing payrolls. Corporate profits now account for the largest percentage of the economy on record. 

(2) We need more jobs that pay decent wages, are safe, sustain the environment, and provide a modicum of security. If seeking to achieve this minimum level of decency ends up “killing” some jobs, maybe those aren’t the kind of jobs we ought to try to preserve in the first place. 

(3) Businesses create jobs only when they have enough customers, and lay off workers when they don’t. The real job creators are consumers with enough money in their pockets to buy what businesses have to sell. The real job killers in America are lousy jobs at lousy wages.

(PS: "Inequality for All" is now on Netflix. Watch it and help build the movement).

Write your Congressman about jobs and a jobs bill from Congress, this Congress, today or as soon as possible, please.  For all of us. For America, Americans, American jobs and for a better, healthier US and even world economy. You can find your representative here:

Contact Elected Officials | USA.gov

Thank you in advance.

Someone in this country has to lead on jobs

Republicans in Congress aren't leading and won't lead on jobs. They write, propose and pass zero jobs/infrastructure bills for the nation, this in spite of the worst downturn in the economy since the 1930's, since the Great Depression. So the president will lead, instead.



And yes, they and lots of others will hate him for even this.

Looney.

Things that will change--greatly--with the next generations

I've noticed a few things about the preferences of the next, younger generations, that are different--vastly different--from the way America and Americans are now. There will be big changes with the coming younger people. Whole economies will be turned upside down, if not eliminated entirely:

First thing I noticed is that they have vastly, vastly different preferences for ways to spend their time. Nowhere is this more true than when it comes to computers and television.

The younger the person, the less likely they are to watch TV, period. At least, they don't watch it on a television set.  Instead, they spend far more of their time--frequently all their spare time--on their computers.

That's a big change in and of itself.

A second part of that is that they don't need or want "cable TV." They wouldn't even think of paying for a TV subscription, let alone what it costs at present.

Those factors alone will bode hugely in change and changes for TV providers like Cox, Time Warner Cable®, Comcast, AT&T® and the like. They will have to transform themselves greatly in just a few short years. Big changes are going to come.

Second, or, in a way, thirdly, a big change is that younger people want and own fewer cars. As in none, in many cases. That will mean huge changes in transportation for our country, certainly.  Maybe more car poolers?  Mass transportation?  It seems likely.

Third, not only will entire industries be racked by change, with some, lots, maybe, even likely, entire cities and towns will also be racked by change. One city right now is going through such a change, with no optimistic outcome in sight.

That city is Branson, Missouri.

Formerly, millions of dollars were made, rather famously, on the idea of people driving or busing into that city in order to see the various shows, performers, singers and other acts at this Northwest Arkansas hamlet.

No longer.

Last Summer, the again famous "Shepherd of the Hills" show closed after decades of performances.

Branson seems to be next.

The senior citizens that formerly used to stream through the city have either seen enough of the shows or, worse, they're literally dying. From what I understand, the theaters down there are quietly for sale, behind the scenes. It seems they can be bought for fractions of what they were once worth. It stands to reason. The younger people don't want to and will not be going there for their entertainment. It's in no way their style entertainment.

Side note:  If the Walton family, of the Walmart fortune, know what's good for them and Northwest Arkansas, they would step up, pony in some big money---they can easily and well afford---and try to get set up an artist's colony-type arrangement in the town and area, much like Asheville, North Carolina has now. I think it could help the burg and that area transition to a better, newer, functioning, surviving, even thriving area and economy. If they don't or someone doesn't, I'd look for Branson, one day, and possibly, very likely one day very soon, to be a rather hollowed-out, sad and run down place of yesteryear unless they or someone very like them--Tyson Foods? someone--steps in.

We shall see, of course, on all.

The willfully ignorant--and yes, clearly racist--American public

The ignorance of any population of a country I can kind of understand, sure. Ignorance is a bit like air, it's all around you.  I was reminded of our nation's ignorance by an article in The New York Times today:

Obama's Puzzle: Economy Rarely Better, Approval Rarely Worse

A bit from the article:

WASHINGTON — President Obama will pronounce on the state of the union for the fifth time on Tuesday, and never during his time in office has the state of the economy been better — yet rarely has he gotten such low marks from the public for his handling of it.

Not only have economic indicators shown progress toward pre-recession health, but many forecasters are predicting what one called “a breakout year” for growth. A new study from a Federal Reserve economist even put a more benign spin on a negative trend, the shrinking labor force, by attributing the decline not to discouraged unemployed workers who have quit looking for jobs, but to the first baby-boomer retirements.

Demand for labor is up and the unemployment rate is below 7 percent for the first time since November 2008. Consumers, buoyed by rising home prices and stock values, are spending more; so are businesses. Exports are growing as Europe regains health. The fiscal drag from state and federal spending cuts has abated. And contrary to Republicans’ claims, many forecasters do not see the health care law as “a job-killer.”

Not only does this president get little or no credit for the good and growing economy, but the vitriol and ugliness that one can hear, read and see in this country towards this man is not just negative but at least a few people have publicly called for him to be not just impeached but killed. One said, on Facebook, he should be lynched. It's outrageous.

It reminds me of the saying that minorities have to work twice as hard yet they get half the credit of a white man. There's no better example of this than to examine the presidencies of President Obama and his predecessor, for one very easy, pertinent and extremely recent proof of that. It became an all-too-true meme, showing our collective hypocrisy, if not stupidity:

Now if we could just get a Congress that would a) work and b) send a good jobs/infrastructure bill to him this year, as soon as possible.

Links:

Man accused of threatening life of Obama, first family

Man threatens president's life

"Birther" Busted For Threatening To Kill Obama 

Man Threatens Obama's Life On Facebook

Fox News analyst tells Tea Party group he can lead a military coup against Obama

How long do you want to put up with this, America?

 

How long?

 

 

 Fortunately, the American people aren't completely daft and there is some good news: 

 

Poll Indicates GOP Has Been Deeply Damaged By Shutdown Fight

 

 

 

Why "wealth distribution" matters

The wealthy are pocketing the benefits of all of our working our tails off, folks.

More here:

A Decade of Flat Wages: The Key Barrier to Shared Prosperity 

Just a few of the findings:

• According to every major data source, the vast majority of U.S. workers—including white-collar and blue-collar workers and those with and without a college degree—have endured more than a decade of wage stagnation. Wage growth has significantly underperformed productivity growth regardless of occupation, gender, race/ethnicity, or education level.
• During the Great Recession and its aftermath (i.e., between 2007 and 2012), wages fell for the entire bottom 70 percent of the wage distribution, despite productivity growth of 7.7 percent.
• Weak wage growth predates the Great Recession. Between 2000 and 2007, the median worker saw wage growth of just 2.6 percent, despite productivity growth of 16.0 percent, while the 20th percentile worker saw wage growth of just 1.0 percent and the 80th percentile worker saw wage growth of just 4.6 percent.
• The weak wage growth over 2000–2007, combined with the wage losses for most workers from 2007 to 2012, mean that between 2000 and 2012, wages were flat or declined for the entire bottom 60 percent of the wage distribution (despite productivity growing by nearly 25 percent over this period).
• Wage growth in the very early part of the 2000–2012 period, between 2000 and 2002, was still being bolstered by momentum from the strong wage growth of the late 1990s. Between 2002 and 2012, wages were stagnant or declined for the entire bottom 70 percent of the wage distribution. In other words, the vast majority of wage earners have already experienced a lost decade, one where real wages were either flat or in decline.
• This lost decade for wages comes on the heels of decades of inadequate wage growth. For virtually the entire period since 1979 (with the one exception being the strong wage growth of the late 1990s), wage growth for most workers has been weak. The median worker saw an increase of just 5.0 percent between 1979 and 2012, despite productivity growth of 74.5 percent—while the 20th percentile worker saw wage erosion of 0.4 percent and the 80th percentile worker saw wage growth of just 17.5 percent.

People on food stamps are the problem?

Some facts and one moral truth:

It's not the poor man that's the problem with our nation or debt or deficits, ladies and gentlemen.

Austerity and why we need a jobs bill from Congress

Proof:  Why we need an infrastructure/jobs bill from this Congress and the sooner the better:

Austerity Won't Work if the Roof Is Leaking

This is an excellent article in today's New York Times showing Germany as one very appropriate example of precisely why we so sorely need an infrastructure/jobs bill now and have for some time.  Just a few of the best snippets:

Lately...fears about growing public debt have caused wholesale cuts in American public investment. The Germans, of course, yield to no one in their distaste for indebtedness. But they also understand the distinction between consumption and investment. By borrowing, they’ve made investments whose future benefits will far outweigh repayment costs. There’s nothing foolhardy about that...

The Germans are investing in infrastructure not to provide short-term economic stimulus, but because those investments promise high returns. Yet their undeniable side effect has been to bolster employment substantially in the short run...

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the nation has a backlog of some $3.6 trillion in overdue infrastructure maintenance. No one in Congress seriously proposes that we just abandon our crumbling roads and bridges, and everyone agrees that the repair cost will grow sharply the longer we wait.

The case for accelerated infrastructure investment becomes more compelling with our economy still in the doldrums. That’s because many of the needed workers and machines are now idle. If we wait, we’ll need to bid them away from other tasks. Also because of the sluggish economy, the materials required for the work are now relatively cheap. If we wait, they will become more expensive. And long-term interest rates for the money to pay for the work continue to hover near record lows. They, too, will be higher if we wait...

Now austerity backers urge — preposterously — that infrastructure repairs be postponed until government budgets are in balance. But would they also tell an indebted family to postpone fixing a leaky roof until it paid off all its debts? Not only would the repair grow more costly with the delay, but the water damage would mount in the interim. Families should pay off debts, yes, but not in ways that actually increase their indebtedness in the longer term. The logic is the same for infrastructure.

Sure, the Republicans and Right Wing and all the current President-haters want--and in the case of the Republicans, need--Mr. Obama to fail in his job but that desire or need should clearly pale next to the need for the nation to succeed.  We need our people--at least more of them, if not all--working and our economy to be chugging along.

Besides, this would give Congress something to do.

This will be making some Right Wing heads asplode today

The very famously business-friendly Forbes magazine, no less, writes the following:

Economically, Could Obama Be America's Best President?

From the link:

"...Presidents universally take credit when the economy does well (such as Reagan,) and choose to blame other factors when the economy does poorly (such as Carter.) But there was a clear pattern, and link, between policy and financial market performance.

Although we hear almost no one in the Obama administration taking credit for record index highs, they should. Because the President deserves attention for how well this economy has done during his leadership.

The auto rescue plan has worked. American car manufacturers are still dominant and employing millions directly and in supplier companies. Wall Street reform has been painful but it has re-instated faith amongst investors. The markets are far more predictable than they were four years ago, as VIX numbers demonstrate greater faith and less risk.

Even for small investors, such as thoughs limited to their 401(k) or IRA investments, the average annual compound return on stocks under President Obama has been more than 24% since the lows of March, 2009. This is a better result than either Clinton, Reagan or FDR – who were the prior winners in our book.

To which, we have only one thing to say to the Republicans, the Right Wingers, the Neoconservatives and all the haters out there:

Suck it, beeyotches.

Things Americans need to know about our economy (guest post)

Things we Americans need to know, now, both about our past and current situation and what we could and should do.

From The New York Times today:

The Chutzpah Caucus

By PAUL KRUGMAN

At this point the economic case for austerity — for slashing government spending even in the face of a weak economy — has collapsed. Claims that spending cuts would actually boost employment by promoting confidence have fallen apart. Claims that there is some kind of red line of debt that countries dare not cross have turned out to rest on fuzzy and to some extent just plain erroneous math. Predictions of fiscal crisis keep not coming true; predictions of disaster from harsh austerity policies have proved all too accurate. 

Yet calls for a reversal of the destructive turn toward austerity are still having a hard time getting through. Partly that reflects vested interests, for austerity policies serve the interests of wealthy creditors; partly it reflects the unwillingness of influential people to admit being wrong. But there is, I believe, a further obstacle to change: widespread, deep-seated cynicism about the ability of democratic governments, once engaged in stimulus, to change course in the future. 

So now seems like a good time to point out that this cynicism, which sounds realistic and worldly-wise, is actually sheer fantasy. Ending stimulus has never been a problem — in fact, the historical record shows that it almost always ends too soon. And in America, at least, we have a pretty good record for behaving in a fiscally responsible fashion, with one exception — namely, the fiscal irresponsibility that prevails when, and only when, hard-line conservatives are in power. 

Let’s start with the common claim that stimulus programs never go away. 

In the United States, government spending programs designed to boost the economy are in fact rare — F.D.R.’s New Deal and President Obama’s much smaller Recovery Act are the only big examples. And neither program became permanent — in fact, both were scaled back much too soon. F.D.R. cut back sharply in 1937, plunging America back into recession; the Recovery Act had its peak effect in 2010, and has since faded away, a fade that has been a major reason for our slow recovery. 

What about programs designed to aid those hurt by a depressed economy? Don’t they become permanent fixtures? Again, no. Unemployment benefits have fluctuated up and down with the business cycle, and as a percentage of G.D.P. they are barely half what they were at their recent peak. Food stamp usage is still rising, thanks to a still-terrible labor market, but historical experience suggests that it too will fall sharply if and when the economy really recovers. 

Incidentally, foreign experience follows the same pattern. You often hear Japan described as a country that has pursued never-ending fiscal stimulus. In reality, it has engaged in stop-go policies, increasing spending when the economy is weak, then pulling back at the first sign of recovery (and thereby pushing itself back into recession). 

So the whole notion of perma-stimulus is fantasy posing as hardheaded realism. Still, even if you don’t believe that stimulus is forever, Keynesian economics says not just that you should run deficits in bad times, but that you should pay down debt in good times. And it’s silly to imagine that this will happen, right? 

Wrong. The key measure you want to look at is the ratio of debt to G.D.P., which measures the government’s fiscal position better than a simple dollar number. And if you look at United States history since World War II, you find that of the 10 presidents who preceded Barack Obama, seven left office with a debt ratio lower than when they came in. Who were the three exceptions? Ronald Reagan and the two George Bushes. So debt increases that didn’t arise either from war or from extraordinary financial crisis are entirely associated with hard-line conservative governments. 

And there’s a reason for that association: U.S. conservatives have long followed a strategy of “starving the beast,” slashing taxes so as to deprive the government of the revenue it needs to pay for popular programs.

The funny thing is that right now these same hard-line conservatives declare that we must not run deficits in times of economic crisis. Why? Because, they say, politicians won’t do the right thing and pay down the debt in good times. And who are these irresponsible politicians they’re talking about? Why, themselves. 

To me, it sounds like a fiscal version of the classic definition of chutzpah — namely, killing your parents, then demanding sympathy because you’re an orphan. Here we have conservatives telling us that we must tighten our belts despite mass unemployment, because otherwise future conservatives will keep running deficits once times improve. 

Put this way, of course, it sounds silly. But it isn’t; it’s tragic. The disastrous turn toward austerity has destroyed millions of jobs and ruined many lives. And it’s time for a U-turn.

This rotten, very Capitalist economy, thanks to the Communist leading us

The economy is recovering and the Dow Jones and Wall Street are soaring yet people say we're being lead by a Communist and/or Socialist and/or Kenyan.

Right.

Gas prices headed nowhere good

 

We've seen it, in the last few days, those pesky gas prices, having gone down and somewhat, maybe, spoiling us for a bit, are once again on the rise.  This from the Star today:

Gas prices rise overnight

And the thing is, if they're rising now, in the middle of winter, we all pretty well know where they'll be headed this Summer, right? It seems as though, between that annual Summer rise in prices and a possible economic recovery, if one, in fact, hopefully takes place, it seems clear we'll be at--and likely above--$4.00 a gallon for gasoline this year.

Yahoo.

Economy Improving

Two recent indications the national economy is improving, in spite of the Republicans and Congress:

Housing starts climb to highest rate since June 2008

Economy, Year-End Sales Help Auto Industry In 2012

and not to be done there but the indications for 2013 don't look completely bleak, either:

2013 Auto Sales Will Be Strong, Firm Predicts

Imagine, then, if Congress didn't fight our president on the economy, at least.

Imagine what we could achieve.