U.S. Economic Recovery Looks Distant as Growth Stalls
Recessions are always painful, but the Great Recession that ran from late 2007 to the middle of 2009 may have inflicted a new kind of pain: an era of slower growth.
It has been five years since the official end of that severe economic downturn. The nation’s total annual output has moved substantially above the prerecession peak, but economic growth has averaged only about 2 percent a year, well below its historical average. Household incomes continue to stagnate, and millions of Americans still can’t find jobs. And a growing number of experts see evidence that the economy will never rebound completely.
For more than a century, the pace of growth was reliably resilient, bouncing back after recessions like a car returning to its cruising speed after a roadblock. Even after the prolonged Great Depression of the 1930s, growth eventually returned to an average pace of more than 3 percent a year. But Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew, citing the Congressional Budget Office, said on Wednesday that the government now expected annual growth to average just 2.1 percent, about two-thirds of the previous pace.
“Many today wonder whether something that has always been true in our past will be true in our future,” Mr. Lew told members of the Economic Club of New York. “There are questions about whether America can maintain strong rates of growth and doubts about whether the benefits of technology, innovation and prosperity will be shared broadly.”
The most recent recession and the slow recovery have “left lasting scars on the economy,” the Labor Department concluded late last year in a report that declared slower growth “the new normal” for the American economy. The Federal Reserve, persistently optimistic in its previous forecasts, said in March that it no longer expected a full recovery in the foreseeable future.
...
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/12/bu...s.html?hp&_r=0
The VRWC War on Employees for 35+ years has caused income stagnation for the 95%, then the Banksters Great Depression hit, knocking the 95% even further, way down.
VRWC has purchased tax policies and aggressive tax avoidance and criminal tax evasion leading to World Champion Inequality, leaving the 95% with not enough to fund the 70% of the economy that is consumer spending.
Repugs block ALL progress, like Fed minimum wage, re-financing student loans, etc, etc, to protect the wealth of corporations, the 1%, the financial sector.
Repugs have big enough minorities in Congress to block ALL progress, and they have put 5 extremist political hacks on the SCOTUS to rape 10s, 100s of years stare decisis to the fantastic benefit of the corporations and wealthy, ever more able to buy the policies that protect/enrich themselves while screwing the 995%.When the Repugs get majorities in the Congress, nobody intelligent will be able to deny that the Repugs will grease the skids even more for the decline of the 99%.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 06-12-2014 at 08:59 AM.
In Most States, Unemployment Rates Haven’t Bounced Back
Five years since the end of the recession, many states still haven’t returned to, or neared, their previous levels of unemployment. And though many states have seen significant drops in rates, much of the improvement can be attributed to workers dropping out of the labor force altogether
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/11/business/unemployment-rates-in-states.html
see the per-state graph of unemployment
Obama got every bailout and stimulus he asked for. He reappointed Bernake and then appointed Yellen. He even got his tax increases. Who knew he was a republican and part of the VRWC.
tax increases? which ones?
Obama wanted more stimulus but the Repugs raging obstruction blocked any further discussion, when the original stimulus was seen to, even before it was approved, way too small for the depth of the Banksters gift to America.
The one on the poor. You know that super regressive one where they increased withholding taxes on EVERYONE.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/...icans/1803773/
About 77% of American households will face higher federal taxes in 2013 under the agreement negotiated between President Obama and Senate Republicans, estimates the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan Washington research group.
That's because even though just 1% of households will pay higher income taxes, an increase in federal payroll taxes will hit nearly every wage earner, the Tax Policy Center says."While neither Democrats nor Republicans got everything they wanted, this agreement is the right thing to do for our country," Obama said late Tuesday.
We need to stop buying foreign goods and return the manufacturing jobs here.
won't happen, unless chinese labor costs go very high. the corporate push for globalization, NAFTA, and now TPP and the same with Europe has and will continue to screw US employees.
many of the US goods we consume are made by US companies in China and india.
highly regressive income tax is part of the VRWC strategy. see the Repug tax cuts in the 2000s.
If eg the $100Bs of Repug estate tax cuts were restored, tax on the lower 75% wouldn't need raising.
Hm interesting. By that logic Obama could have also agreed to reduce government spending by an amount that would offset the increased on taxes on the poor. Spending cuts and tax increases? Sounds like a recipe to balance the budget to me that republicans (who claim to want to reduce government spending) would have no choice but to go along with. Oh wait, no he chose to sellout his "base" instead. After all, he had a war with Syria to plan and those are expensive. At the end of the day the MIC needs its pound of flesh.
"By that logic Obama could have also agreed to reduce government spending"
take a look at govt employee levels, fed and local, 100Ks laid off, ie, reducing govt spending.
While the Repugs LIE about "out of control spending" (only on stuff they don't want), semi-austerity at fed level, instead of counter-cyclical spending/stimulus, is a main reason the rebound of jobs and the Real Economy is taking so long.
And the House Repugs have been blocking/reducing spending in their version of austerity, ing up America so they can blame it on Obama/Dems.
And we will continue to decline as a nation if these are never addressed.
They won't be addressed any time soon, because the VRWC has bought their tea baggers enough seats to impose minority rule on Congress.
Blocking everything maintains the status quo (of permanent decline for the 95% and ascension for the 5%). the corps and wealthy are in the increasingly powerful, dominant driver's seat and NOBODY gonna kick them out.
The New Budget Outlook Shows that Austerity Makes No Sense
The new long-term budget outlook from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, reaffirms that the national debt will remain stable over the medium term, while long-term debt projections have fallen dramatically over the past several years. Meanwhile, Congress has severely damaged the economy with deep spending cuts in a misguided attempt to solve a short-term debt crisis that simply does not exist.
Austerity is moving this key metric in the wrong direction, and CBO’s report shows this policy choice is costing the U.S. economy dearly. CBO forecasts for potential GDP fell as austerity took hold, illustrating the painful and unnecessary costs of cutting spending on public investments, education, nutritional assistance, emergency unemployment insurance benefits, and more. These humane economic policies would be a textbook response that provides targeted fiscal stimulus in a downturn to deliver a strong, stable recovery.
After this latest CBO report, it is clearer than ever that our ongoing experiment with austerity has failed, and it is long past time for Congress to focus on growing the economy instead.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issu...akes-no-sense/
Thanks, Repugs and you Repug voters!
Of course, the 1%, unaffected by austerity, keeps piling up the cash while the 99% and the country go downhill.
Repugs laying austerity on Obama PERSONALLY!
House Republicans successfully ban funding for canceled White House renovation, so take that, Obama
Last week, the General Services Administration canceled a White House bowling alley renovation project, a project that probably actually had some merit, but was nonetheless an obvious political lightning rod even though the bowling alley isn't actually located in the White House itself. So the White House stepped in and canceled the project.Yawn. End of story, right? Wrong:
The House on Wednesday adopted a proposal to prohibit funding to renovate the White House bowling alley.Rep. Pat Meehan's (R-Pa.) amendment to the fiscal 2015 Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill, which includes funding for the General Services Administration, passed by voice vote.
Woo! House Republicans blocked something that wasn't even happening! Time for them to celebrate, right?
The House Ways and Means Committee pushed ahead a set of tax breaks Thursday that would add another $304 billion to the deficit over 10 years, on top of $310 billion in loopholes it voted for last month.
"With our nation $17 trillion in debt, upgrading the president's private bowling alley shouldn't be a priority," Meehan said. "A spiffy new bowling alley may suit the wants for commander in chief, but I think I speak for the taxpayers of the seventh congressional district when I assert that it is certainly not a need."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/0...a?detail=email
=============
we be talkin' 'bout the deficit?
House GOP Backs Tax Breaks That Add $300 Billion To Deficit
If all the measures were to become law, they would wipe out the deficit savings Congress passed less than two years ago in the deal that headed off the so-called fiscal cliff. In that deal, Bush-era tax cuts were allowed to expire only on income above $400,000, returning about $600 billion to the treasury over 10 years.
Many of the loopholes that the tax-writing committee voted to extend Thursday are popular, including breaks for charitable deductions. The biggest change made permanent one of the tax cuts used recently for economic stimulus, called bonus depreciation, which allows companies that would normally have to write off new capital investments over many years to get 50 percent of the break right away.
Bonus depreciation has been used in the last two recessions to convince companies to speed up investments to spur the economy. But making the cut permanent -- as well as including things like the planting of fruit vines and trees as eligible investments -- would add $287 billion to the deficit over a decade, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.
The previous temporary cuts had bipartisan support, but Democrats objected to the new round, arguing that making them permanent would just reward companies for making investments they would have made anyway, and spur little growth. They pointed to a Congressional Research Service report that noted bonus depreciation is a "relatively ineffective tool for stimulating the economy."
"Like the ancient alchemists who thought they could change straw into gold, this bill won't stimulate our economy,"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_5412865.html
tax cuts create jobs: LIE
tax cuts stimulate investment: LIE
tax cuts block investment by increasing profits pocketed by stockholders.
TAX increases INCREASE investment
That would be nice! Also somehow do away with outsourcing. IM tired of going to Medical Center track and seeing abuncha damn injuns playing that wierd ass baseball game they play. plus there would be alot more american jobs. pipe dream i know. but i wish
iow, America is ed and un able, because the corporations will ALWAYS block legislation "addressing" the transfer of US manufacturing to polluted, unregulated, slave-labor countries.
The United Corporations of America/Wall St wanted globalization, and they got it.
The Fiscal Fizzle
For much of the past five years readers of the political and economic news were left in little doubt that budget deficits and rising debt were the most important issue facing America. Serious people constantly issued dire warnings that the United States risked turning into another Greece any day now. President Obama appointed a special, bipartisan commission to propose solutions to the alleged fiscal crisis, and spent much of his first term trying to negotiate a Grand Bargain on the budget with Republicans.
That bargain never happened, because Republicans refused to consider any deal that raised taxes. Nonetheless, debt and deficits have faded from the news. And there’s a good reason for that disappearing act: The whole thing turns out to have been a false alarm.
I’m not sure whether most readers realize just how thoroughly the great fiscal panic has fizzled — and the deficit scolds are, of course, still scolding. They’re even trying to spin the latest long-term projections from the Congressional Budget Office — which are distinctly non-alarming — as somehow a confirmation of their earlier scare tactics. So this seems like a good time to offer an update on the debt disaster that wasn’t.
About those projections: The budget office predicts that this year’s federal deficit will be just 2.8 percent of G.D.P., down from 9.8 percent in 2009.
It’s true that the fact that we’re still running a deficit means federal debt in dollar terms continues to grow — but the economy is growing too, so the budget office expects the crucial ratio of debt to G.D.P. to remain more or less flat for the next decade.
Things are expected to deteriorate after that, mainly because of the impact of an aging population on Medicare and Social Security. But there has been a dramatic slowdown in the growth of health care costs, which used to play a big role in frightening budget scenarios.
As a result, despite aging, debt in 2039 — a quarter-century from now! — is projected to be no higher, as a percentage of G.D.P., than the debt America had at the end of World War II, or that Britain had for much of the 20th century.
Oh, and the budget office now expects interest rates to remain fairly low, not much higher than the economy’s rate of growth. This in turn weakens, indeed almost eliminates, the risk of a debt spiral, in which the cost of servicing debt drives debt even higher.
Still, rising debt isn’t good. So what would it take to avoid any rise in the debt ratio? Surprisingly little.
The budget office estimates that stabilizing the ratio of debt to G.D.P. at its current level would require spending cuts and/or tax hikes of 1.2 percent of G.D.P. if we started now, or 1.5 percent of G.D.P. if we waited until 2020.
Politically, that would be hard given total Republican opposition to anything a Democratic president might propose, but in economic terms it would be no big deal, and wouldn’t require any fundamental change in our major social programs.
In short, the debt apocalypse has been called off.
Wait — what about the risk of a crisis of confidence? There have been many warnings that such a crisis was imminent, some of them coupled with surprisingly frank admissions of disappointment that it hadn’t happened yet. For example, Alan Greenspan warned of the “Greece analogy,” and declared that it was “regrettable” that U.S. interest rates and inflation hadn’t yet soared.
But that was more than four years ago, and both inflation and interest rates remain low. Maybe the United States, which among other things borrows in its own currency and therefore can’t run out of cash, isn’t much like Greece after all.
In fact, even within Europe the severity of the debt crisis diminished rapidly once the European Central Bank began doing its job, making it clear that it would do “whatever it takes” to avoid cash crises in nations that have given up their own currencies and adopted the euro. Did you know that Italy, which remains deep in debt and suffers much more from the burden of an aging population than we do, can now borrow long term at an interest rate of only 2.78 percent? Did you know that France, which is the subject of constant negative reporting, pays only 1.57 percent?
So we don’t have a debt crisis, and never did. Why did everyone important seem to think otherwise?
To be fair, there has been some real good news about the long-run fiscal prospect, mainly from health care. But it’s hard to escape the sense that debt panic was promoted because it served a political purpose — that many people were pushing the notion of a debt crisis as a way to attack Social Security and Medicare. And they did immense damage along the way, diverting the nation’s attention from its real problems — crippling unemployment, deteriorating infrastructure and more — for years on end.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/21/op...ttom-well&_r=1
Last edited by boutons_deux; 07-22-2014 at 08:13 AM.
GOP Ministry of Truth weekly report, with a TX Repug as chosen LIAR
Weekly House Address Claims Over-Regulation Caused Crash of 2008
Perhaps to fill us with dismay, Boehner has assigned the task of lying to the American people this week to House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, yet another in a long line of dishonest Texas Republicans, who, we are told, “discusses Republicans’ commitment to protect hardworking families and small business owners from the job-crushing Dodd-Frank law, which President Obama signed five years ago this week.”
So here we go, digging into things Obama (not Bush!) did years ago rather than doing some work today – say, creating jobs, taxing the wealthy or corporations, or at least actually regulating, instead of pretending to stand up to Wall Street. Here is the big lie, the talking point around which all that follows is based:
KEY QUOTE:
“If we want strong economic growth, more freedom and an end to bailouts, it’s time we commit to making sure this anniversary is Dodd-Frank’s last. House Republicans are working to do just that. Together, we can end Wall Street bailouts, have a healthier economy, and protect consumer choice.”
http://www.politicususa.com/2015/07/18/weekly-house-address-claims-over-regulation-crash-2008.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&ut m_campaign=Feed%3A+politicususa%2FfJAl+%28Politicu s+USA+%29
All y'all bubbas, rednecks, teabaggers, patriots tell us yet again how the Repugs were AGAINST the Repug TARP to bailout the financial sector.
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