Political Economy category archive

The BBC explores the new home of the homeless: cheap motels.

I drop down into Albuquerque, into Joy Junction, which in the red dusk looks like a scene from Steinbeck. There are 300 homeless people staying here, all families.

Jeremy Reynalds, an expat Brit who runs the place, tells me frankly that the mainstay of the place are people with drug, alcohol and domestic violence issues. But as the years of crisis have dragged on, there is a new phenomenon – the homeless middle-class.

Sam Uretsky digs them out, in the Progressive Populist:

The rudiments of macroeconomics date back to Genesis 37: 25-36, the story of Joseph and the Pharaoh, when Joseph increased taxes by collecting grain during the years of plenty and redistributed the grain during the years of famine. Unfortunately, the Republicans under President Bush didn’t build up a surplus, or even maintain a balanced budget, when they had control, but the answer to improving economic conditions remains stimulation through deficit spending, even if the nation’s indebtedness continues to grow. The alternative, cutting spending, will simply cost more jobs and drive the economy further down. President Obama’s role should be to use the bully pulpit to teach economics 101 and explain why bad times are the right time to spend. He didn’t, and walked into the trap.

’nuff said.

Under 400k:

Jobless claims fell by 24,000 to 398,000 in the week ended July 23, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The level of claims was fewer than forecast, as the median estimate of economists in a Bloomberg News survey called for a drop to 415,000. There were no special factors associated with the decrease other than the usual volatility that occurs each year in July, a Labor Department spokesman said.

(snip)

The four-week moving average, a less volatile measure than the weekly figures, fell to 413,750 last week from 422,250.

The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits dropped by 17,000 in the week ended July 16 to 3.7 million.

I’m putting on my “analyst” hat (I’m clearly as qualified as the next guy) and predict the number will be up next week.

If I get it wrong, maybe someone will offer me a job as a forecaster. Getting it wrong seems to be the main qualification.

Foreclosure-based jobs are secure jobs:

Down in Florida – two state Prosecutors – Theresa Edwards and June Clarkson – uncovered rampant foreclosure fraud perpetrated by big banks using robo-signers to kick thousands of families out of their homes illegally. But as the prosecutors were preparing their cases against the banksters – they were inexplicably fired by Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. Why? Because, as they allege, they were going after banksters TOO aggressively.

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Via Hanlon.

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From This Modern World.

Facing South parses the “compromise” proposal from the Gang of Six.

“Gang” is right.

Here are some snippets:

Current top marginal income tax rate for the wealthiest Americans and most profitable corporations: 35%

Lowest rate to which that would be reduced by the Gang of Six proposal: 23%

Estimated amount in profits being held offshore by U.S. companies, which under the plan would see an end to taxation of most of their overseas profits: $1 trillion

Follow the link for the full post and the links to their sources.

I have a pretty low opinion of Ralph Nader.

His best days are far behind him, and his fits of scolding everyone have become tiresome.

Then there’s that enabling George the Worst thing.

But I must admit that he raises a good question in a recent column in the Chicago Trib, to wit (I’m paraphrasing here):

Is it unreasonable to expect corporations, who are more and more extended the rights of individual persons, to act with some level of loyalty to the country that extends them those rights?

Read it.

For all practical purposes, no change:

Applications for jobless benefits increased 10,000 in the week ended July 16 to 418,000, Labor Department figures showed today. Economists forecast 410,000 claims, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. The data included about 1,750 additional job cuts due to the Minnesota government shutdown, the agency said.

Aside:

The interviewer spins wheels to get her to commit to concessions.

Of course, if she did so, they would not longer be “concessions.”

They would be the starting point in the next round of talks.

(I nearly wrote “negotiations” instead of “talks,” but there aren’t any “negotiations.” It takes two to “negotiate.” Going limp on the floor and yelling “my way or the highway” in Republican fashion is not “negotiating.”)

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Dana Garrett has a suggestion:

So what Republican and Democratic administrations have in common is that they tend to engage in optional wars, but they don’t want to pay for them through increased tax revenues. They’d rather borrow to pay for these wars regardless of its impact on the national budget.

So instead of a balanced budget amendment, I recommend an amendment to the constitution that requires Congress to raise taxes across the board whenever the nation undertakes a major military endeavor to cover the FULL cost of the military endeavor.

It doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell, but it does point out the absurdity of the current budget kabuki in Washington.

Follow the link to read his entire argument.

Philly dot com takes a look at foreclosures in Willingboro, N. J., one of the original Levittowns.

The foreclosure market is still going strong:

The statistics are overwhelming. About two homes a week there were lost last year in sheriff’s sales, the final and most extreme event in a foreclosure. So many people are unable to avoid foreclosure, through mediation or the private sale of their homes, that Willingboro houses accounted for 20 percent of all sheriff’s sales in 2010 in Burlington County.

In 2005, 209 foreclosure actions were filed against homeowners in Willingboro. In 2006, when the crisis hit, the number shot up 34 percent to 281, according to an analysis from American Foreclosures Inc., a firm that collects detailed foreclosure data.

Since 2005, about 2,400 foreclosures have been filed in the township of 12,000 homes, according to the analysis.

I am going to predict that the foreclosure segment of the economy is starting to weaken and that jobs created by the need to process foreclosures may be in jeopardy.

Why? Because I am starting to see commercials on television inviting Joe and Jane Viewer to call this number! or click that website! to learn how they, too, can get in on the foreclosure bonanza and pick up a houses for “as little as $1,000.00!”

I think this is the foreclosure-based economy’s equivalent to all those mailings we used to get from CountryWide and AmeriQuest, inviting us to jump on the mortgage-go-round.

Foreclosure entrepreneurs are running out of a market; they need to drum up new marks.

No doubt this will be followed by shows on cable channels with names like, “Flip This Foreclosure.” Other, lesser cable channels will follow with clones. Viewers by the twos and threes will drive ratings.

After a couple of years, pundits will start to wonder whether there is a “foreclosure bubble” that has become unsustainable.

Other pundits will argue that “God ain’t making no more foreclosures,” so the market for foreclosures should continue to thrive and grow.

And then–well, you know.

Crash.

This time, though, no one will become unemployed and homeless, because everyone who is not a CEO or hedge fund manager already will be living in tent cities and begging at freeway exits.

Coming up:

The emerging new market in tricked-out shopping carts: the latest rage in tent cities.

And a new show on the latest trend to help families make ends meet: Pimp My Bride.

Decoding the eleven dimensional chess.

Via Bob Cesca.

Alan Grayson:

If you follow the market, the market goes up every time it looks like the Republicans are going to compromise; the market goes down every time it looks like they won’t.

And that’s a very uncomfortable position for any Republican.

With government budget lines under ever increasing scrutiny, and more and more Americans losing their homes due to foreclosure, the Army has accomplished a seemingly unprecedented double whammy of bad publicity when it was revealed earlier this week that over $2 million in their 2012 budget will be devoted to the housing of three generals.

One of the projects involves improving the “official entertainment space” in the house.

Cutting social security will no doubt fix this.

In other news, LiberalGeek has 10 suggestions for reducing government expenses that are far more realistic than anything Republicans have advanced.

Still over 400k:

Applications for jobless benefits decreased 22,000 in the week ended July 9 to 405,000, Labor Department figures showed today. Economists forecast 415,000 claims, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. The data included fewer layoffs in the auto industry than typical this time of the year, according to an agency spokesman.

Aside:

How can I get a job as one of those forecasters?

They are less accurate than astrologers and better paid.

Steve Chapman sums it up in the Chicago Trib:

There lie the crucial facts about the defense budget: 1) Washington politicians resist cutting in wartime; and 2) it’s always wartime.

This is something that has been nagging at me for some time, but I wasn’t sure how to address it. Now a letter writer to the Philly Inquirer has saved me the trouble.

When politicians complain about the cost of retirees’ pensions, they often leave out the full term: “Unfunded pension obligations.”

It’s not the pensions. It’s the politicians who refused to plan for them, but instead have used pension funds for other purposes.

Unfunded state pension plans were, from the start, a fraud on taxpayers. By paying public employees partly in unfunded IOUs, they enabled state governments to claim that their budgets were balanced when, in fact, state liabilities were increasing faster than state assets. The unfunded IOUs were a promise by the state to pay part of the salaries in the future from future tax revenues, and thus a promise to raise taxes if necessary. They were also a fraud on the employees . . . .

The situation with social security is similar.

Social Security isn’t broke; it’s looted, sacrificed to the fetish against taxes citizens paying for the services they demand from the government.