Economy, Politics and Local Government
August 2, 2011 Leave a comment
You may not favor his progressive politics, but he is a first rate economist who reflects very basic and accepted economic analysis.
All of a sudden, people seem to have noticed that policy is moving in exactly the wrong direction. We’re getting headlines like this: Debt Deal Puts U.S. on Austerity Path as Economy Falters.
August 1, 2011 Leave a comment
The timing of the Mayor’s now well published contracting of a platoon of deputy mayors at exceptional salaries, raises deep doubts whether the lessons learned from the Mayor Alvarez have taken hold in our community.
With these exceptional contracts, the new hires are showing they are not confident that Mayor Gimenez will survive his brief period of government leadership, and his deputy mayors are not confident that the county commission will approve fundamental reforms. Not a strong vote of confidence.
Are there no important community leaders that are prepared to volunteer to help redirect county government in Miami-Dade–apparently not.
Mayor Gimenez’s decision to hire a cadre of high priced managers is a calculated test of our taxpayers’ patience that he will really make the changes he promised during the campaign.
We will see.
July 31, 2011 Leave a comment
Mark Zandi, Chief Economist of Moodys in a CNN interview, stated that the “debt limit deal” is amazing and really great and will solve all of the economic worries of our country and get our economy back on track. According to his effusive rant he said that all the private sector needs in order to restart hiring is the “deal.”
He ignores that consumers have cut back on spending, the government spending cuts have a negative impact on the economy and state and local governments and the housing market is in the tank. Unbelievable, but true.
Most economists and prinicipal financial leaders agree that immediate reductions in spending will have a bad impact on our economy.
My friends, prepare yourselves for a multi-year stagnation in unemployment and growth in the US economy.
July 29, 2011 Leave a comment
In other words, pushing more spending no matter what. The Fed such pump out more money into the economy.
Balancing the budget or cutting spending will hurt the economy even more than it is now.
In the first six months of 2011 real GDP grew at an annual rate of only 0.8% per year. At that growth rate, unemployment will rise at about 1 percentage point per year.
I need to see the guts of the numbers, but unless there is something very odd in them, the chance that the unemployment rate will be above 9% in November 2012 just crossed 50% heading upward.
A rational Federal Reserve would:
Begin QE III today.
A rational administration would:
Announce a technical fix to the debt ceiling today: the economy does not need the risk.
Abandon all long-term budget negotiations with anybody who requires cuts to the deficit over the next eighteen months to come to the table: the economy needs stimulus, not contraption.
Take every single uncommitted TARP and TALF and whatever dollar, leverage it up, and throw it at the economy to boost aggregate demand.
