Free Republic

China's 8.9% Growth? No Way Gordon G. Chang, 10.23.09, 12:01 AM EDT Beijing has spent its way to a sugar high. pic On Oct. 22, Beijing announced that gross domestic product grew by 8.9% in the third quarter of 2009 compared with the corresponding period last year. The National Bureau of Statistics also reported that growth for the first three quarters was up 7.7%. /snip Since last November, Beijing has spent perhaps as much as $900 billion--from its own funds as well as those of the larger state banks--to jump start its $4.3 trillion economy. /snip There are fundamental problems...

China’s Growth Picks Up Speed but Raises Concerns By ANDREW JACOBS and BETTINA WASSENER BEIJING — The Chinese economy, already one of the fastest-growing in the world, picked up more speed during the third quarter, adding fuel to a debate over whether, and when, the Chinese authorities might start reining in stimulus measures. Prompted by vastly increased bank lending, generous government support for exports and a $585 billion stimulus package that is spurring a dizzying array of building projects, the Chinese economy grew 8.9 percent from July to September, up from the year-ago period, according to government figures released Thursday....

Job losses as far as the eyes can see in all 57 states that the president visited during his campaign plus the two states that he didn’t get to, Alaska and Hawaii. "Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it."—President Barry Hussein Soetoro Seriously though, President Soetoro you promised that the $789 billion dollars in TARP moneys would...

In recent months, Americans have seen our economy make strides down the long road to recovery. However, we are constantly reminded of the recession as jobless rates continue to climb. As the recovery bill continues to be implemented we must remain vigilant in providing assistance to those hardest hit by the economy. Information was released last week showing the Pennsylvania unemployment rate for September at 8.8 percent. Although unemployment in our state is lower than the national rate, over half a million Pennsylvanians remain unemployed. A significant number of these people have been out of work for months and tens...

Christina Romer of the President's Council on Economic Advisors had this startling answer during a Congressional hearing today. Romer … said Thursday that the $194 billion already spent gave a jolt to the economy that contributed to growth in the second and third quarters of the year. She told a congressional panel that by the middle of next year, the impact of the stimulus will level off. Romer said spending so far has saved or created 600,000 to 1.5 million jobs but warned that unemployment will remain high, above 9.5 percent, through the end of 2010

One of President Obama’s top economic advisers warned on Thursday that the nation’s unemployment is likely to climb above 10 percent by the middle of next year and that job growth will remain anemic through the end of 2010. “Unemployment is likely to remain at its severely elevated level” through the end of next year, predicted Christina Romer, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, at a hearing of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. Ms. Romer said she agreed with private sector forecasters who expect that the economy will expand at a moderate pace through the end...

Highlights in post, plus full audio (about 33 minutes). On the call were Deputy Republican Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ), and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA).

The Obama administration claims that it was their passage of massive government spending that saved the United States from another Great Depression. Last week, Larry Summers, Obama's top economic adviser, claimed that because of the stimulus: "We have walked a substantial distance back from the economic abyss and are on the path toward economic recovery. Most importantly, we have seen a substantial change in the trend of job loss." And Vice President Biden declared at the end of September: "In my wildest dreams, I never thought it [the stimulus] would work this well." As President Obama and other Democrats have...

Pay Czar Feinberg, Not Obama, Behind Decision to Slash Executive Pay White House pay czar Kenneth Feinberg did not seek President Obama's approval to order steep pay cuts from bailed-out executives. Thursday, October 22, 2009 White House pay czar Kenneth Feinberg was the driving force behind the move to order steep pay cuts from bailed-out executives, and did not even seek the president's approval before making his decision. The Treasury Department is expected to formally announce in the next few days a plan to slash annual salaries by about 90 percent from last year for the 25 highest-paid executives at...

Remember it was a bill that was too important not to pass immediately without reading!The following is from Congressman Dave Camp (R-MI), the Ranking Member on the House Ways and Means Committee: 7 Months After Stimulus 49 of 50 States Have Lost Jobs America Now Over 6 Million Jobs Shy of Administration's Projections Wednesday, October 21, 2009 The table below compares the White House's February 2009 projection of the number of jobs that would be created by the 2009 stimulus law (through the end of 2010) with the actual change in state payroll employment through September 2009 (the latest figures...

Although liberals sometimes blurt out the truth in public, mostly they pretend their nostrums make sense. Three specific examples of how liberals refuse to face facts: Michigan is an economic basket case. As noted in the Wall Street Journal, the Democratic governor pushed through a tax increase on business in 2007. This is standard liberal practice -- pretending that a tax on business has no effect on the taxpayer. But all taxpayers are consumers and business can only pay taxes with revenue from its sales to consumers. Still, Michigan liberal politicians adhered to the standard formulation and referred to the...

First Amendment: Diversity czar Mark Lloyd's FCC votes Thursday on the issue of net neutrality. Advertised as providing access to all, it will do to the information superhighway what Lloyd proposed for talk radio. Not much was said when $7.2 billion was included in the stimulus bill "to accelerate broadband deployment in unserved and underserved areas and to strategic institutions that are likely to create jobs or provide significant public benefits." The administration has big plans for the Internet — like controlling it. Susan Crawford, the so-called Internet czar, told the Wall Street Journal in April that the broadband billions...

Wall Street is up to its old tricks again. One year later, one of the key excesses that led our consumer-based economy into an historic downturn is being abused in the exact same way that got us $147-a-barrel oil last summer. Worse, many in the media are again getting the facts wrong on oil prices and demand— Forget what Cambridge Energy Research Associates reported on Oct. 13. By its calculations oil demand actually peaked in 2005 among the industrialized members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation, while in the U.S. alone oil usage has dropped by 2 million barrels a...

It looks like another stimulus package. It sounds like a stimulus package. It spends like a stimulus package. Her economic advisers are even calling it another stimulus. But Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) insists her plans for a host of new spending is not a stimulus package. “That’s not what we’re doing,” Pelosi said Wednesday when asked if there would be a “Stimulus Two.” Instead, the new spending and tax cuts will move in a series of bills, she said, instead of one big bill. “We do not have a plan for an additional stimulus package, but we do have plans...

America Now Over 6 Million Jobs Shy of Administration's Projections Wednesday, October 21, 2009 The table below compares the White House's February 2009 projection of the number of jobs that would be created by the 2009 stimulus law (through the end of 2010) with the actual change in state payroll employment through September 2009 (the latest figures available). According to the data, 49 States and the District of Columbia have lost jobs since stimulus was enacted. Only North Dakota has seen net job creation following the February 2009 stimulus. While President Obama claimed the result of his stimulus bill would...

Oct. 21, 2009 7:44 a.m. | Citing sluggish demand amid the global recession, Milwaukee's Manpower Inc. (MAN) reported Wednesday that its third-quarter net loss was deeper than the year before. The global employment services company said its net loss was $50.4 million or 64 cents a share, compared with a net loss of $43.2 million or 55 cents a share in the third quarter of 2008. Revenue between those periods fell 26% to $4.2 billion. The latest quarter included loss on the sale of an equity investment, a goodwill impairment charge, and charges related to financing. Excluding those charges, Manpower...

An energy analyst is outraged that taxpayer dollars are being used for a bailout of the bus industry that's comparable to the now defunct "cash for clunkers" program. National Journal reports the Transportation Department's Transit Investments for Greenhouse Gas and Energy Reduction (TIGGER) program has spent nearly half its $100-million grant budget to replace diesel buses with hybrid-electric and fully electric models. The "TIGGER" grants are part of President Obama's $787 billion stimulus program and are designed to serve two purposes: stimulate the economy and clean the environment.

PLATTSBURGH — High-speed rail service between Montreal and New York City is one key way to make North America's first green transportation corridor. Pierre Arcand, minister of international relations for the government of Quebec, said that was one of the topics of discussion when Quebec Premier Jean Charest and New York Gov. David Paterson met two weeks ago. Charest noted that former Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau called for high-speed rail in the 1970s. High-speed rail between Buffalo and Albany is almost a certainty, Arcand said at a lunch sponsored by the Plattsburgh-North Country Chamber of Commerce and the Center for...

Just days after the federal government reported a budget deficit more than triple that of any previous fiscal year, Democrats in Washington prepared to double down on their disastrous economic record with “more stimulus” – read: more spending and borrowing. The price tag for this “stealth stimulus:” $100 billion & counting. While Democrats “have scheduled a meeting” for this week to talk about all this new spending, House Republicans have proposed a “bipartisan jobs plan” to help small businesses, assembled a “kitchen cabinet” of economic experts, and convened a working group of lawmakers to review additional job creation proposals. Out-of-work...

HIBBING — U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., traveled to the Range on Thursday armed with some upbeat job statistics that she hopes and believes will result from the $879 billion federal stimulus/spending bill signed into law earlier this week. But when the lawmaker, with family Range roots, arrived to speak at the Hibbing Community College in the late afternoon she had to add a new, unpleasant job number to her speech — 590 layoffs at the Minntac taconite mine in Mountain Iron. “These are real people and this is a real story of layoffs and pain. It’s difficult but important...

Democrats see the job market and have to concede that what they have wrought isn't good. Unemployment has risen to almost 10 percent despite the huge stimulus bill enacted last winter (and the smaller bipartisan stimulus of early 2008). Democratic leaders are slowly discovering that the economy isn't some old jalopy you can jump-start with a few expert tweaks to the sputtering engine. They are realizing that no jobs and no growth spell trouble for their plans to turn America into a large version of Sweden. And yet the Democrats are doubling-down on their tax-and-spend agenda. In a hole of...

FIRST, “Saturday Night Live” parodies President Obama’s “achievements.” Then Mr. Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize, bringing yet more head-scratching. Clearly, the nation’s attention is focused squarely on a question few presidents want to answer just nine months into their term: What has your administration accomplished? I’ll leave foreign and military affairs to the Oslo Five and concentrate on domestic economics. The president’s critics complain that his only real accomplishment is the $787 billion stimulus bill — which they deride, somewhat contradictorily, as either budget-busting, ineffective or both. But is that all there is? I think not. STOPPING THE SLIDE...

Charlie Crist has begun airing the first radio ads of the U.S. Senate race – blasting President Obama for his freespending of taxpayer money, some of which the governor earlier endorsed. A pair of 60-second spots have begun airing statewide – one sending a “message” to Obama that “enough is enough.” The other claims “Washington is out of control. “Yet the president has the same tired answer for every problem – to spend more of your money,” the spot begins. Crist’s approach to Obama and federal spending is a departure from just months ago. Shortly after joining Obama in Fort...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration said on Monday its economic stimulus had saved or created 250,000 education jobs, as it sought to push back against Republicans who contend the package was wasteful and had not worked. Faced with pressure to act to help spur job growth with the U.S. unemployment rate at 9.8 percent, President Barack Obama is considering new steps to help the economy, on top of the $787 billion stimulus package passed earlier this year. But those discussions are in the preliminary stages and Obama may be constrained in what he can do, given the record $1.4...

More than $2.3 million in federal economic stimulus grants have gone to eight Tampa Bay area cosmetology and massage schools to pay tuition for the hairdressers, masseuses and nail technicians of tomorrow.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is considering all options to create jobs, including another stimulus package, while trying to pull the economy out of a deep recession and deal with a record deficit, White House advisers said Sunday. ... "You've got this huge national deficit and we've got to do what we can to bring that down. At the same time, it's important to stimulate the economy," Jarrett said. "Let's wait and see. Let's let the recovery bill do its job." Unemployment stands at 9.8 percent, with more than 4 million jobs lost this year. The deficit has reached $1.4...

From the Obama government website—- The Obama Stimulus “created or saved” 20 jobs in Connecticut. The Obama Stimulus created 28 jobs in Vermont. The Obama Stimulus created 22 jobs in New Hampshire.

What the President Obama "stimulus" money created in the way of jobs in just one state, CT, as an example. Honestly I am not kidding … 20 jobs. Just to review: * $780 billion dollars in stimulus money, approved by Congress in February * Connecticut is awarded $47 million (hey we’re small state) * Connecticut has received through September $1 million * Total jobs created … 20. Yup, 20. But please, don’t take my word for it … straight from Recovery.gov . Click to enlarge......

Funny things happen when the government borrows trillions and transfers a rising chunk of it to individuals: GDP goes up and so does the dependence on government borrowing. Frequent contributor B.C. submitted a fascinating and deeply disturbing chart which depicts government transfers skyrocketing to 22% of personal consumption and 20% of personal income. That means that one out of every five dollars in personal income now comes from the Federal government. Note that this is fully triple the 7% rate at the end of the great postwar Bull market (1967). Also note that the percentage of income has leaped from...

Oklahoma is getting about $12 million to fight homelessness in the state. Funds will be used for the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program, which targets those who are newly or nearly homeless and are having trouble coming up with this month's rent, are behind on their utilities, or need help with a car payment. OKLAHOMA CITY -- A common criticism of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been that too much of the money is going to support or expand social programs. No wonder, then, that some people roll their eyes over the fact that $1.5 billion in...

When speaking about the benefits of the Stimulus, President Obama said a few days ago that when he came into office “we lost 700,000 jobs a month.” This is false!

Link only - Housing forecast: Reno market is 'weakest' in country

$1.4 Trillion Deficit Complicates Stimulus PlansBy JACKIE CALMES Published: October 16, 2009 WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Friday that the federal budget deficit for the fiscal year that just ended was $1.4 trillion, nearly a trillion dollars greater than the year before and the largest shortfall relative to the size of the economy since 1945. The number, while lower than forecast a few months ago, underscored the challenges ahead in shrinking the deficit even as the White House and Congress are considering more steps to stimulate an economy that is making a slow recovery. The political hurdles to finding...

Robert Barro, Professor of Economics at Harvard University, criticizes the recently passed federal stimulus package as a "terrible piece of legislation," and calls for permanent changes to the tax structure to spur economic growth. In a discussion with Tax Foundation Vice President for Economic Policy Robert Carroll in this week's edition of the Tax Policy Podcast, Barro strongly disapproves of both the expenditure and tax provisions within the stimulus legislation. "What they call tax reductions in this bill are really transfer payments, particularly redistribution of income from the rich to the poor," says Barro. "I don't think it's really attractive...

WASHINGTON -- The stimulus isn't doing a thing to help the unemployment rate in the New York metro area, according to shocking new White House data released yesterday. The feds have spent a half-billion dollars on 10 of the largest government stimulus contracts in New York City and Long Island -- but created or retained only 54 jobs. That's an astounding $9 million per job. The largest contract, at Brookhaven labs on Long Island for $261 million, has put only 26 people on the payroll, while two contracts for $23 million apiece to rehab the Thurgood Marshall Courthouse in Manhattan...

Gannett News, so link only: http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20091015/NEWS01/910150392/Stimulus+creates+only+3.5+jobs+in+Tier+s+10+counties But the headline says it all.

Billions of your tax dollars spent on a federal stimulus program and it all comes down to one question -- "Where's the money going?" $47 million of that money is now in use through various companies. The federal government says that money has created or saved 11-hundred jobs. Where has the money gone in North Texas? You might be surprised to learn your tax payer dollars have gone into things like creamy peanut butter. Officials with that company and five others would not talk about their stimulus dollars. But, according to the government's stimulus website, Clements Foods of Lewisville received...

Spending: Stimulus money is being spent to build a bridge between two parts of Microsoft's corporate campus. Money's also available for suicide-prevention fencing on an Ohio bridge — just in time for taxpayers.The stimulus package is designed to fund already planned "shovel ready" projects that states and cities say they cannot afford to complete in this economy. The town of Redmond, Wash., had such a project on its wish list when it applied for stimulus funds to complete a bridge over a freeway dividing the town. Redmond Mayor John Machione said it would create jobs as well as "connecting our...

Louisiana Republican Rep. Anh Cao (R) recently appeared with local Democrats at a press conference urging Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) to reconsider his refusal to support a high-speed rail link between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. But it seems that Cao hasn't given up on prodding his fellow Republican. "I was thoroughly disappointed when my state failed to file a" final high-speed rail application by the Oct. 2 deadline, Cao said today at a hearing of the House transportation committee's railroads panel. Cao called the proposed rail link a potentially "huge economic boost to the region," adding: "We worked very...

SPENCER, Iowa -- A Northwest Iowa plant that makes engine seals for the automotive industry is closing, costing 65 workers their jobs. Michigan-based Freudenberg-NOK announced Wednesday it would close its Spencer plant and distribution center over the next six months and transfer the work to two facilities in Ohio. A Freudenberg-NOK spokeswoman attributed the decision to the economic downturn, which reduced sales to the manufacturing industry. The firm was forced to reassess its operations, and consolidate its maufacturing facilities, which have been operating at reduced capacity, said Sarah O'Hare, the company's vice president of human resources and communications.

Ohio Industrial Jobs Shrink by 106,000 Oct. 14, 2009 6:46 a.m. EVANSTON, Ill. -- Industrial employment in Ohio fell 10.4% over the past 24 months according to the 2010 Ohio Manufacturers Directory. Ohio lost 106,629 manufacturing jobs over the past two years, with 27,398 jobs lost between August 2007 and August 2008 and 79,231 industrial jobs from then to August 2009. Over the same period, Ohio lost 1,198 manufacturers, or 6%. Ohio is home to 18,762 manufacturers employing 918,721 workers, compared to a high of 1.3 million industrial workers and 21,000 manufacturers in 1994. The loss of nearly 80,000 manufacturing...

Al-Qaeda is in its worst financial state for many years while the Taliban's funding is flourishing, according to the US Treasury. Senior Treasury official David Cohen said al-Qaeda had made several appeals for funds already this year. The influence of the network - damaged by US efforts to choke funding - is waning, he said. The Taliban, meanwhile, are in better financial shape, bolstered by Afghanistan's booming trade in drugs. According to Mr Cohen, the al-Qaeda leadership has already warned that a lack of funds was hurting the group's recruitment and training efforts. "We assess that al-Qaeda is in its...

First Lady Michelle Obama visited the headquarters of the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington Tuesday. She devoted much of her talk to "the growing threat of obesity, particularly childhood obesity" in the United States, and she touted HHS's recently-announced plan to spend $373 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on plans to, among other things, improve the healthfulness of foods in vending machines.

Is the largest one-time economic recovery effort in U.S. history creating jobs? According to new reports from governors across the country, it is. Republicans in Congress say it's not, and the debate is getting louder. States and other recipients of stimulus funding have handed in their first assessments of the $787 billion recovery act in recent days. While the Obama administration plans to make these reports public by month's end, some governors have released their initial evaluations. In California, stimulus funds have created or saved more than 100,000 jobs through the end of September, according to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The...

don't read Slate Magazine all that often and I certainly don't read Daniel Gross that much. I have read his work on occasion and I didn't read him as a dogmatic liberal. I took him as a left of center moderate. That's why I was a bit surprised by his pathetic defense of the stimulus. The defense essentially comes down to two things 1)you can't criticize the stimulus because it hasn't really started yet and 2)that's all by design. As was planned from the start, in fact, only a small portion of the $787 billion has been spent. The Council...

9.8 Percent and Rising by: Sarah Carlsruh, October 13, 2009 The House Republican Policy Committee invited top economists to its Summit on the Economy and Unemployment on September 30th to address the question on so many Americans minds: What went wrong with the economy? Representative Mike Pence (R-IN), House Republican Conference Chairman and co-sponsor of the summit with Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI), addressed the disconnect between “the priorities here in D.C. and the priorities of the American people,” such as the gulf between what politicians say about the stimulus bill and its actual performance. “Apart from our national defense,” stated...

It's an odd natural occurrence when you put MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews and CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer together, but when it happens they seem to draw some obvious conclusions - albeit nearly 10 months too late. Back in January, Cramer appeared on Matthews' show. They both expressed their concern over the $787-billion stimulus, which eventually passed and asked if it really was stimulative. When the duo appeared together again on Oct. 12, they concluded it wasn't. Cramer was on "Hardball" to promote his new book, "Jim Cramer's Getting Back to Even." Matthews observed that the stimulus bill...

From the moment it passed, the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act—the stimulus bill—has been the subject of controversy. Many critics have deemed it a debacle, since unemployment has continued to rise in the months since its passage. The Republican Party declared the bill a failure over the summer, and House Minority Leader John Boehner recently deemed it a waste: "You can't spend $800 billion of taxpayer money and not create jobs when you say that's what the goal was." At a dinner several weeks ago, I heard a cable news reporter, one whose job is to report numbers...

White House Faces Pressure on Jobs Despite Stimulus Successes, More Action Sought By Neil Irwin, Lori Montgomery and Michael A. Fletcher Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, October 9, 2009 Eight months after enacting a massive economic stimulus package, the Obama administration is facing rising pressure from some congressional Democrats to move more aggressively to jump-start the moribund job market and try to spur a housing recovery. For the lawmakers, the imperative is clear: to get the job market back on track before midterm congressional elections in November 2010. While mainstream economists credit the $787 billion stimulus package passed in February...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration has helped pull the U.S. economy back from the "abyss" with aggressive efforts to spur growth and stabilize financial markets, a top White House adviser said on Monday. Defending policies that Republicans have attacked as ineffective, National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers argued measures put in place by the administration, including a $787 billion stimulus package, had helped turn back the deepest U.S. recession since the Great Depression. "Thanks largely to the Recovery Act, alongside an aggressive financial stabilization plan and a program to keep responsible homeowners in their homes, we have walked a...