Tag Archive
Alan Greenspan bank bailouts bank failures Bank of America Ben Bernanke Bush tax cuts capitalism China credit rating downgrade deficit spending deregulation economic bubble economic collapse economic crisis economic denial economic news articles economic predictions economic recovery euro crisis European Union foreclosure fraud George Papandreou George W. Bush government debt great depression Greek crisis gross domestic product housing bubble housing market collapse hyperinflation Iran nuclear crisis national debt occupy wall street phantom GDP ponzi scheme quantitative easing Reaganomics recession v depression stock market sustainable economics The Federal Reserve the great recession Treasury Department unemployment united states postal service
Economic Predictions for 2012 – My end-of-year audit
It’s time to assess my own 2012 economic predictions. In looking honestly at the shortcomings in my predictions, I see something interesting. The picture of events formed a ghost image to my own forecast. It shaped up weaker than I had predicted, and yet has taken the exact form I envisioned, albeit in paler colors [… Read More]
Republicans Have Become the Failing Power Grid of America
Watching the aftermath of hurricane Sandy, I found myself repeating something I’ve complained about for decades. I watched the tired story of millions of people living in dark because of power lines being whipped about in a storm. What a metaphor that is for how truly in-the-dark America has become. I listened to stories of [… Read More]
An economic plan that might have brought recovery from depression
Anyone can criticize while having no better ideas. In fact, I would argue that, if you cannot put forward reasonable alternatives, you might not be qualified to criticize those who are, at least, trying something. In that spirit, I want to scope out a new economic recovery program vastly different from the economic plan the U.S. adopted [… Read More]
Press the Press on Its Failure to Cover the Economic Depression Adequately
To the Financial Editors and Reporters of this nation: One thing that defies sense to me is how nearly all of you have demonstrated an overwhelming tendency to write more optimistically about the economy than the facts deserve. I can understand why the government does it and to some extent why economists do it (in [… Read More]
Economic News Articles in the Great Recession — Archive for the week of 04/29/2012
The first and most notable thing I did while working on this website last week was laugh at the optimistic headlines I was posting. MSNBC reported, “New claims for unemployment benefits tumbled more than expected in the latest week, raising hopes that the job market remains on the mend.” NPR reported the same story this way: [… Read More]
Are My 2012 Economic Predictions for the Great Recession in Recess … or are they just about to mature?
I started the following update on my predictions a few weeks ago, but didn’t have time to finish it. It is interesting now to see how the update is already being fulfilled in the news this week. I finished it today, realizing I’d better get it posted before everything it says looks like hindsight.
China Teaches Europe about Capitalism and Trade
“Everybody has an opinion about trade with China, and here is mine: let’s trade ‘em Ben Bernanke for Fu Ying [China's Vice Foreign Minister]. Throw in a minor league pitcher if we have to – President Obama comes immediately to mind.” (The following is a guest editorial from Tim Nerenz, traveling in China on business) [… Read More]
The Fundamentals of Economic Failure
Whether right in predicting a plunge in October or not, I am confident that the economy is not in recovery in spite of the convulsions of last week’s stock market. Not even a little bit in recovery. The U.S. economy is merely shored up with additional rotten wood. The original rot in the floor is as [… Read More]
Last-Minute Euro-Crisis Update: Stock Market Ecstasy Has No Afterglow
I warned in an article posted here two days ago that the plan for the European Economic Crisis left a lot to be desired and that market enthusiasm for the plan, as it sent the market into convulsions, was as meaningless as … well, sex in a whorehouse. Such euphoria is just what happens there. [… Read More]
Consumer Spending Returns to Old Deficit Habits
Not all the news was Greek. The U.S. consumer spending report this week showed that consumer spending is up even though consumer confidence is at its lowest point in two and a half years. GDP supposedly returned to pre-recession levels, too. That came with the caveat from Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics, that the rise [… Read More]
Larry Summers Wants to Fix the Economy, but You Can’t Fix Stupid
Apparently, experts never learn. Larry Summers writes: “The central irony of financial crisis is that while it is caused by too much confidence, too much borrowing and lending and too much spending, it can only be resolved with more confidence, more borrowing and lending, and more spending.” (The Financial Post) What he really means is [… Read More]
Why the Government Says The Great Recession Ended When it Never Did … and Why the Press Doesn’t Get it
In the statement below, CNBC (Reuters actually) tells us in one breath that we’re worse off than we’ve been in 28 years, but in the next breath, they tell us the recession ended two years ago. How does it not occur to them to ask, “If the Great Recession ended two years ago, why are [… Read More]
Wells Fargo’s Stumpf is Stumped over Economic Slump
“The economic recovery has been more sluggish and uneven than anyone anticipated,” Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf said a statement. [sic.] “We can’t change the economic environment, yet we have worked hard to control the variables we can.” (Banks Slump as Wells Fargo, Citigroup Say Revenue Falls on Economy, Europe — Bloomberg) It strikes me as lame [… Read More]
Economic Apocalypse Now?
Bad news is good news, I suppose, if you are starting a blog about the economic crisis and are hoping to find an audience. I feel a bit like a vulture perched on a snag, waiting for the economy to die, but I don’t create the news. I started The Great Recession Blog because the [… Read More]
