Economy

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Clyburn: 'We've got to spend our way out of this recession'

The Hill

The U.S. government must spend its way out of the recession, the Democrats' third-ranking House leader stressed Monday.

Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), the House majority whip, said that trying to find greater savings in the budget, which was released by President Barack Obama this morning, wouldn't help alleviate the recession.

"We've got to make some decisions here as to what's in the best interests of our country going forward," Clyburn said during an appearance on Fox News. "And I think the best interest is to invest in education, control these deficits, while at the same time trying to get people back to work."

Federal Watchdog: TARP Program Opens Way for Deeper Economic Meltdown

CNSNews.com

Neil Barofsky, the man tasked with overseeing the administration of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), told Congress in a report released Sunday that the bank bailouts have cleared the path to another financial crisis -- potentially even more grave than the 2008 crisis.

“(E)ven if TARP saved our financial system from driving off a cliff back in 2008,” Barofsky wrote, “absent meaningful reform, we are still driving on the same winding mountain road, but this time in a faster car.”

The special inspector general for TARP added: “It is hard to see how any of the fundamental problems in the system have been addressed to date.”

White House to paint grim fiscal picture

Reuters

The White House will predict a record budget deficit in the current fiscal year and more big shortfalls for the next decade in its upcoming budget proposal, a congressional source told Reuters on Sunday.

In its budget proposal to be released on Monday, the White House predicts a record $1.6 trillion budget deficit for the fiscal year that ends September 30, the Capitol Hill source said.

According to the estimate, deficits will narrow to $700 billion by fiscal 2013 before gradually rising back to $1.0 trillion by the end of the decade, the source said.

President Barack Obama will seek to strike a balance between reducing the deficit over the long term and stimulating the economy in the short term to ease the pain of double-digit unemployment.

White House budget boosts market regulators' funds

Reuters

The White House proposed giving market regulators more funding to examine and police Wall Street as the government struggles to hold those accountable for the worst financial crisis in decades.

Under the Obama administration's fiscal 2011 budget, the Securities and Exchange Commission would get a 10.3 percent increase in funding and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's budget would increase by 28 percent.

The White House also proposed nearly $1 billion in additional funds for various regulators, contingent on Congress passing legislation to reform the country's financial regulation.

Wages and benefits rise weak 1.5 percent in 2009

Associated Press

Wages and benefits paid to U.S. workers posted a modest gain in the fourth quarter, ending a year in which recession-battered workers saw their compensation rise by the smallest amount on records going back more than a quarter-century.

The anemic gains have raised concerns about the durability of the economic recovery. The fear is that consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of economic activity, could falter if households don't have the income growth to support their spending.

Spending Cuts – Not Revenues – Key to Solving Budget Shortfall, GOP Leaders Say

CNS News

Top House Republicans Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said that spending cuts, not increased revenues, were the key to resolving the nation’s projected $6 trillion in deficit spending over the next decade.

Speaking at different Capitol Hill press conferences Wednesday, Cantor – the GOP Whip – and Ryan – its ranking budget hawk – said that the federal government must enact major spending cuts if it is to prevent adding trillions of dollars to the national debt over the next decade.

Obama to propose freeze on government spending

Washington Post

Under mounting pressure to rein in mammoth budget deficits, President Obama will propose in his State of the Union address a three-year freeze on federal funding that is not related to national security, a concession to public concern about government spending that could dramatically curtail Obama's legislative ambitions.

The freeze would take effect in October and limit the overall budget for agencies other than the military, veterans affairs, homeland security and certain international programs to $447 billion a year for the remainder of Obama's first term, senior administration officials said Monday, imposing sharp limits on his ability to begin initiatives in education, the environment and other areas of domestic policy.

Pelosi Says Jobs ‘Permeated’ Congressional Actions in Year of 10 Percent Unemployment

CNSNews.com

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that the issue of job creation has “permeated” the efforts of congressional Democrats over the past year. Pelosi’s statement stands in stark contrast to a bleak jobs year that saw unemployment rise to over 10 percent.

“The jobs issue has permeated everything, [every] major initiative that we have,” Pelosi said at her weekly press briefing Thursday. The speaker outlined the various proposals that she said had pulled the economy “back from the brink” over the past year.

Geithner aired concern on bank limits-sources

Reuters

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has expressed some skepticism behind closed doors about the broad bank limits proposed on Thursday by his boss, President Barack Obama, according to financial industry sources.

The sources, speaking anonymously because Geithner has not spoken publicly about his reservations, said the Treasury chief is concerned the proposed limits on big banks' trading and size could impact U.S. firms' global competitiveness.

Russia diversifies into Canadian dollars

FinancialTimes.com

Russia’s central bank announced on Wednesday that it had started buying Canadian dollars and securities in a bid to diversify its foreign exchange reserves.

Analysts said the move could be a sign of increased diversification of emerging market central bank assets away from the dollar and into investments denominated in other commodity-linked currencies, such as the Australian dollar.

Adam Cole at RBC Capital Markets said if taken in isolation, Russia’s announcement that it was buying Canadian dollars was not significant, but if it was part of a broader trend, then it was an important step.

“If it is a barometer for the activity of other central banks, then its is structurally positive for the currencies of countries like Canada and Australia that have a commodity bias in their economies,” he said.

Hong Kong remains world's freest economy

Breitbart

Hong Kong remains the world's freest place to do business while the United States has lost its claim to an unrestricted economy, according to an annual report published Wednesday.

Singapore, Australia and New Zealand grabbed second, third and fourth spots respectively.

But Canada pushed the US from the top seven economies deemed to have an entirely free economy due to "notable decreases in financial freedom, monetary freedom, and property rights," the report said.

Retail sales sink, jobless claims rise

Associated Press

Retail sales unexpectedly fell in December, leaving 2009 with the biggest yearly drop on record and highlighting the formidable hurdles facing the economy as it struggles to recover from the deepest recession in seven decades.

In another disappointing economic report, the number of newly laid-off workers requesting unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week as jobs remain scarce.

U.S. Chamber CEO Calls Obama's Plan to Tax Bank Transactions ‘Bad Idea’

CNS News

Tom Donohue, CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the Obama administration’s plan to tax bank transactions to recoup some of the $364 billion in TARP funds used to bail out the U.S. financial sector is misguided.

“The interesting thing about the suggestion of some form of tax or another on bank transactions, the immediate thing they say is, ‘don’t pass it on to consumers,’” Donohue said.

“If you don’t pass it on to the consumer, then you’re going to have smaller profits,” Donohue said. “If you have smaller profits, then your stock is going to go down. If your stock goes down, then everybody that holds your stock may need to sell it, or they are going to have less money in their 401K or in their pension plan or in their investment deals.

U.S. Chamber warns of 'double-dip' recession because of Dem policies

The Hill

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue warned the U.S. faces a double-dip recession because of the taxes and regulations under consideration by the Democratic Congress and President Barack Obama.

“Congress, the administration and states must recognize that our weak economy simply could not sustain all the new taxes, regulations and mandates now under consideration. It’s a sure-fire recipe for a double-dip recession, or worse,” Donohue said in a speech providing the Chamber's outlook for 2010.

China Ends U.S.’s Reign as Largest Auto Market

Bloomberg.com

China supplanted the U.S. as the world’s largest auto market after its 2009 vehicle sales jumped 46 percent, ending more than a century of American dominance that started with the Model T Ford.

The nation’s sales of passenger cars, buses and trucks rose to 13.6 million, the fastest pace in at least 10 years, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. In the U.S., sales slumped 21 percent to 10.4 million, the fewest since 1982, according to Autodata Corp.

Economy loses 85K jobs, unemployment rate steady

Associated Press

Lack of confidence in the economic recovery led employers to shed a more-than-expected 85,000 jobs in December even as the unemployment rate held at 10 percent. The rate would have been higher if more people had been looking for work instead of leaving the labor force because they can't find jobs.

The sharp drop in the work force -- 661,000 fewer people -- showed that more of the jobless are giving up on their search for work. Once people stop looking for jobs, they are no longer counted among the unemployed.

Fed Chief Edges Closer to Using Rates to Pop Bubbles

Wall Street Journal

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke cracked the door open a bit more to the idea of raising interest rates if a new financial bubble emerges.

He also mounted a vigorous defense against critics who say it was the Fed's low-interest-rate policies over the past decade that caused the last housing bubble. Instead, he said, the problem was lax regulation, which permitted banks to issue a slew of exotic mortgages that households later had trouble paying

U.S. growth prospects deemed bleak in new decade

Reuters

A dismal job market, a crippled real estate sector and hobbled banks will keep a lid on U.S. economic growth over the coming decade, some of the nation's leading economists said on Sunday.

Speaking at American Economic Association's mammoth yearly gathering, experts from a range of political leanings were in surprising agreement when it came to the chances for a robust and sustained expansion:

They are slim.

GMAC to get $3.5 billion more in government aid

Reuters

GMAC Financial Services is expected to get about $3.5 billion in additional U.S. government aid to help the troubled lender absorb mortgage losses, a financial industry source familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

GMAC has already received $12.5 billion in aid from the U.S. government since December 2008.

Expanding Health Coverage and Shoring Up Medicare: Is It Double-Counting?

New York Times

At the heart of the fight over health care legislation is a paradox that befuddles lawmakers of both parties.

Separate bills passed by the Senate and the House would squeeze nearly a half-trillion dollars from projected spending on Medicare over the next 10 years. These savings would help offset the cost of providing coverage to people who are uninsured.

At the same time, federal accountants say the money would shore up the Medicare trust fund, so the program could continue paying hospitals to treat older Americans in the future.

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