Addressing Fears of Recession
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-08-23/addressing-fears-recession
President Obama says the U.S. is not facing another recession. But he acknowledges an unemployment rate that is too high and an economy that's not growing fast enough. He has been criticized for not moving more quickly to ease regulations that business and industry view as overly burdensome. Today the White House announced new regulatory reforms to address those concerns. It expects the measures to save businesses billions of dollars, spurring them to hire workers. And the president will outline a jobs program after Labor Day. In this hour, economic experts weigh in on ideas to spark growth of the economy and jobs.
Guests
Jared Bernstein
senior fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; former chief economist and economic policy adviser for Vice President Biden.
Phillip Swagel
professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, senior fellow Milken Institute and assistant secretary for economic policy at the Treasury Department from 2006 to January 2009.
Eamon Javers
Washington correspondent, CNBC.
Zanny Minton Beddoes
economics editor, The Economist; formerly, economist at the International Monetary Fund.
Russell Roberts
a professor of economics at George Mason University, Distinguished Scholar at the Mercatus Center and a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
Program Highlights
Although President Obama insists that we are not headed for another recession, many Americans consider the wild fluctuations in financial markets and poor economic indicators as harbingers of a double-dip. Our guests discussed some of the reasons behind the current economic crisis, including the housing bubble, and offered some policy suggestions they think will help get the country out of it.
- "I think the crisis of confidence is real. I think there is a lot of concern and legitimate concern about where the economy is heading. I think no good economist should predict a recession or not. I don't think we really have any idea of what's going to happen. There could be a bunch of good news that comes along, and suddenly things look rosier," Roberts said."
- "You have every reason to be frightened of the stock market right now when it's doing this kind of thing every day. But unemployment, still very high. I mean, if your brother-in-law is still out of work, and - you're going to feel it. And it's going to scare you that you might be out of work. And housing - this is an economic crisis that started in the housing sector," Javers said.
- "We are in a world where we had a huge housing bubble that's bust. We've got very over-levered consumers. We have consumers, therefore, that are reluctant to spend more, reluctant to borrow more. That's an ongoing drag on the economy. So people who've looked at those kinds of situations in the past - and there haven't been that many of them - said that this recovery was always going to be a weak and feeble one," Bedoes said.
- Diane asked the guests what one thing they would each do right now if they could to help spur economic growth.
- "There's no silver bullet. But here's an idea for you. It's called FAST, fix America's schools today. There are 100,000 schools out there, public schools. And almost every one of them is in an ill state of repair. They need insulation. Many need retrofits, new windows, new boilers. Think of the energy efficiency savings," Bernstein said.
Comments
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Sorry, John, your post is nothing but leftist talking points.
If you don't like how things are turning out, work to get the laws changed. You say, "at least some of them did [earn leagally] some of the time". If you have evnidence of illegality, bring it forward.
99% born into rich families? Care to source that, or did you just pull it out of your arse? And so what if it is? Because somebody was born into a rich family, does that give you the right to take their money?!
The left wants to spread the wealth around. That's the bottom line. "If you can't legislate, confiscate". That's a sign of a soiciety heading toward socialism.
Oh, and your "tea party created by a PR firm" is BS. You can wish it were so, but that won't make it so. This is one of the tactics of the left - demean and diminish what you don't like. The Tea Party is real. And it's a force to be reckoned with.
In preparation for commodities speculation in natural gas over the coming uncertain winter I have recently completed a literature (MSM economic analysis) review of economic thinking before the 2008 Meltdown. One observation stands out. Crude oil surged to a measily $30 a barrel following 9/11 and has settled in the 20s at the height of our twin wars of occupation in 2004. Around that time a generalized consensus assumed that a slowdown or even a Depression in the US economy might occur if there were a crisis or shortage and crude oil prices exceeded $60 per barrel for more than 6 months. I had to laugh considering the endurance of subsequent per barrel prices at $80 and upward, and often exceeding $100 or more.
The dynamic of our economy is that the few wealthy live by charging the many poor interest on homes, cars, education, medical expenses and daily necessities. Right now the major banks are designing a payday loan program to be unveiled in the January heating season. Considering how dependent the lower 60% of our citizens are on credit, and how the 2nd fifth indulges there is no wonder John Q. Public is a weakened donkey toting the top quintile and especially the top 1%. The price of gasoline, heating fuel and deregulated electrity have broken the economic back of the USA. Consumer confidence means nothing when the consumer has an empty tank and only enough credit/cash for 8 days of the next 14 day pay period, and this assumes the family still has at least one wage earner.
There are other onerous forms of taxation besides the federal deductions for income and Entitlements. Corporate managed usury is the highest and most disabling tax we face. If you understand that you can easily see that banksterism is the glue holding most people back from prosperity. A Constitutional overhaul is in order to disrupt the concentration of wealth and income. And it is this same cabal, so well represented in Congress and on the Supreme Court that keeps us retarded in a dark age of energy policy. In fact, the missed opportunity to tax oil and oil companies has cost us the funding necessary to overhaul our energy infrastructure. For instance, our top energy analyst, Amory Lovins is convinced there is more available energy in conservation and increased efficiency than in all the domestic crude oil and natural gas we will ever be able to drill. (The biggest saving and consumer windfall is in the nuclear plants and gas liquification plants we are never forced to build and finance at citizen expense.) No breakthrough or reform will come until the credit extraction methods of the wealthy class are broken. And if we are not careful the Simpson's episode where Mr. Burns owns the Sun could come true. Concentrated corrupt political power will not limit itself or surrender but will foster structural violence and outright mass murder to keep its advantages. (See Baqshar al-Assad in Syria.) I am comfortably well off at present and retain some means of making money at the margins. And yet I'm going to join the occupation of Washington Oct. 6, 2011. My hope is to overthrow wage slavery and debt peonage keeping my fellow Americans from acting as citizens. With the Oligarchic tax on archaic energy this will not be easy, but it will be much harder later when their interest on our very breath accrues.