Archive for Economy
Boehner: The clearing of the market
Posted by: | CommentsAll the government’s efforts to help distressed homeowners stay in their homes have done, says Rep. John Boehner, is “delay the clearing of the market.”
I love that euphemism, “the clearing of the market.” As in throwing families out into the street. It’s like how the Pentagon described the secret carpet bombing of Cambodian villages as “counterinsurgency strikes.” Or how the FBI (same time period) testified about an investigation and used “a male individual residing in the adjoining domicile” to mean the next door neighbor. It’s so cold and clinical, so devoid of human emotion.
Euphemisms reveal what is most important to you by hiding what is not. “Clearing the market” reveals that boosting real estate values clearly takes priority over helping families stay in their homes. That’s the bottom line.
CSI: Wall Street
Posted by: | Comments
Several recent reports worth noting on the Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group that President Obama announced in his State of the Union address. Rachel Maddow brought New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman onto her show [timestamp 4:40] to discuss the RMBS Working Group’s charge. Schneiderman and fellow AGs Kamala Harris (CA), Beau Biden (DE), Lisa Madigan (IL), Martha Coakley (MA), Catherine Cortez Masto (NV) have bucked the Justice Department and fellow state AGs who worked to cut a deal on limiting bank investigations earlier this year. Schneiderman, et. al. weren’t about to hand out “Get Out of Jail Free” cards. This pressured the Obama Justice Department to get more serious about holding the banks accountable.
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Smart Math
Posted by: | CommentsResident Urban Planning guru and Asheville advocate, Joe Minicozzi, authored this piece for Planetizen. Joe has been discussing these ideas for a long time, and I’m glad to have this opportunity to share them with you. Normally I’d just excerpt pieces, but this one is so Asheville-oriented that I’m going to repost it in full.
Downtown Pays
Asheville, North Carolina — like many cities and towns around the country — is hurting financially.
It’s not that Asheville is some kind of deserted ghost town. Rather, it’s a picturesque mountain city with a population of about 83,000 that draws tourists from all over the world, especially during the leaf-peeping season. But it’s also a city that appeals to its residents, who revel in strolling about a true walkable downtown chock-full of restaurants and retail shops featuring locally grown and crafted products. Downtown is not only one of Asheville’s main draws; it also serves as a major driver in helping the city overcome its budgetary doldrums.
Most of us – city planners, elected officials, business owners, voters, and the like – understand that the city brings in more tax revenue when people shop and eat out more. However, we often overlook the scale of the property tax payoff for encouraging dense mixed-use development.
Many policy decisions seem to create incentives for businesses and property developers to expand just about anywhere, without regard for the types of buildings they are erecting. In this article, I argue that the best return on investment for the public coffers comes when smart and sustainable development occurs downtown.
We’ll use the city of Asheville as an example. Asheville realizes an astounding +800 percent greater return on downtown mixed-use development projects on a per acre basis compared to when ground is broken near the city limits for a large single-use development like a Super Walmart. A typical acre of mixed-use downtown Asheville yields $360,000 more in tax revenue to city government than an acre of strip malls or big box stores.
Rabbit Punch
Posted by: | CommentsWow! That’s terrific bunny …
New York Times : A Mortgage Investigation
The moment Obama mentioned a panel to investigate banks, I thought: “I hear you. Now show me.” The panel is to include New York AG Eric Schneiderman, a thorn in the side to an administration that seems keen on sweeping the whole thing under the rug. A attempt at co-opting him? The Times thinks so.
There is good reason to be skeptical. To date, federal civil suits over mortgage wrongdoing have been narrowly focused and, at best, ended with settlements and fines that are a fraction of the profits made during the bubble. There have been no criminal prosecutions against major players. Justice Department officials say that it reflects the difficulty of proving fraud — and not a lack of prosecutorial zeal. That is hard to swallow, given the scale of the crisis and the evidence of wrongdoing from private litigation, academic research and other sources.
Fiscal Times :
After the Layoff: Congrats on Your New, Worse Job
The good news is the unemployment rate is slowly ticking down – from 9 percent in October 2011 to 8.5 percent in December. Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 200,000 in December, and hiring was up in retail, hospitality, professional services and health care.Yet, for the majority of U.S. workers, average wages have remained stagnant for decades, and median household income dipped during the recession, declining 6.4 percent between 2007 and 2010. According to a study released in December by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers, just 7 percent of those who were let go during the recession have matched previous income. A little over half reported taking a pay cut – and of those, 29 percent took a reduction in salary by 30 percent or higher. To top off the bad news, 30 percent of the reemployed percent took a reduction in benefits.
Digby: Zombies are eating election officials brains
Not that this will stop the wingnuts from their crusade but it should. Turns out that the South Carolina zombies weren’t zombies after all.
What Digby said.
This Chinese Life
Posted by: | CommentsA couple of weeks ago, “This American Life” aired a story titled “Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory,” about life in the Chinese factory that makes the iPhone and other consumer electronics. Apparently, others took notice. “The Daily Show,” for example.
I wonder if the dormitories in the clip are the ones they show to the press?
Rabbit Punch
Posted by: | CommentsWow! That’s terrific bunny …
Welcome news for North Carolina:
Freightliner announces second shift, 1,100 new jobs
STATESVILLE, N.C. — During a press conference with Gov. Bev Perdue today, Freightliner announced the addition of a second shift at its Cleveland plant, a move that will create 1,100 new jobs.
The plant, which is located in Rowan County just over the Iredell County line, will start interviewing for the new jobs next week. Freightliner is a truck builder.
At its lowest point, the Freightliner plant went from 3,500 workers down to about 650.
NC tax collections $150 million ahead of schedule
RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina’s tax collections are 1.6 percent ahead of projections through the first half of the fiscal year, but executive and legislative branches differ on whether this means an improved second-half revenue outlook.Gov. Beverly Perdue announced Tuesday the state’s general fund took in $150 million above the roughly $9.4 billion expected through Dec. 31 to balance the budget. Collections increased $60 million during December alone thanks in part to corporate and franchise taxes.
Furniture manufacturer brings jobs back to N.C.
… Bruce Cochrane, who worked as a consultant in China and Vietnam after his family sold their furniture business in 1996, says rising Chinese wages and an increase in shipping costs have created an opportunity for him back home.Cochrane has invested $5 million and is hiring 130 workers to build middle- to higher-priced solid wood furniture in the same sprawling Lincolnton warehouse that his family once ran. He even moved into his dad’s old office.
Cochrane joined President Obama and other business leaders in the East Room of the White House on Wednesday as part of an “insourcing jobs forum.”
Those who fail to remember the past…
Posted by: | CommentsCaterpillar Locks Out Canadian Union Workers, Aims to Cut Wages In Half. But more on that after the jump…
In the wake of a doubling of unemployment caused by austerity policies put in place in 1979 under Margaret Thatcher to slash government spending and bring down inflation, one of Thatcher’s economic advisors, Sir Alan Budd, has second thoughts.
The clip above is from Adam Scott’s six-part 1992 BBC documentary television series, Pandora’s Box. The series examines overoptimistic efforts to apply the techniques of mechanistic science to predict and manage human behavior. Episode three examines attempts by “the dismal science” to steer the economy. The clip is from the epilogue to Episode 3: The League of Gentlemen.
Crucial Conversation Full House
Posted by: | CommentsRob Schofield and Chris Fitzsimon came to Asheville this past week to provide a briefing on how policies out of Raleigh are affecting us all. The duo write for NC Policy Watch, a project of the NC Justice Center, who held last week’s budget symposium at AB Tech. There were over 80 attendees at this Crucial Conversation.
The two explained that their organizations provide a counterpoint to the conservative perspectives coming from Civitas, the John Locke Foundation, and Americans for Prosperity.
Recent NC polling results from Public Policy Polling were displayed early in the meeting:
Hard-Headed Money
Posted by: | CommentsThis morning, Paul Krugman looks at Rep. Ron Paul’s fetish for Austrian economics. In contrast to Mitt Romney’s weathervane consistency, Paul’s ideology is rock solid. He continues in the faith even when proven wrong.
“Austrians” opposes monetary expansion of the kind the Fed has carried out unless backed by hard money. It leads inevitably to hyperinflation, goes the theory. And the “monetary base” has tripled since the economic meltdown.
Austrians, and for that matter many right-leaning economists, were sure about what would happen as a result: There would be devastating inflation. One popular Austrian commentator who has advised Mr. Paul, Peter Schiff, even warned (on Glenn Beck’s TV show) of the possibility of Zimbabwe-style hyperinflation in the near future.
So here we are, three years later. How’s it going? Inflation has fluctuated, but, at the end of the day, consumer prices have risen just 4.5 percent, meaning an average annual inflation rate of only 1.5 percent. Who could have predicted that printing so much money would cause so little inflation? Well, I could. And did. And so did others who understood the Keynesian economics Mr. Paul reviles. But Mr. Paul’s supporters continue to claim, somehow, that he has been right about everything.
On the Backs of Children and the Poor
Posted by: | CommentsYou saw the poverty facts that came out last week. Behind the rising percentages are real people struggling to meet their basic needs. Without a stable platform from which to operate, there is no time and there are no resources to utilize for purposes of escaping the poverty trap.
In light of these facts and the lives of hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians, the Republicans in Raleigh have decided to balance the budget on the backs of children and the poor. Rather than expanding revenues, they’ve targeted services for children and the impoverished.
The following statistics come from a report issued by the NC Justice Center and the United Way of North Carolina. I can’t find it online, but I’ll post the link when I can.
