Tag: economy

From AP: While much of America worries about the possibility of a double-dip recession, stories of prosperity are cropping up as U.S. farmers enjoy their best run in decades, thanks to high prices for many crops, livestock and farmland and strong global demand for corn used in making ethanol.

Farm profits are expected to spike by 28 percent this year to $100.9 billion, and the amount of cash farms have available to pay bills also is expected to top $100 billion — the first time both measures have done so, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. All the while, crop sales are expected to pass the $200 billion mark for the first time in U.S. history, and double-digit increases are expected in livestock sales.

“We’re just experiencing the best of times,” said Bruce Johnson, an agricultural economist at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. “It’s a story to tell.”

Retail sales on Black Friday climbed 6.6% this year to an estimated $11.4 billion, according to ShopperTrak, which counts foot traffic at malls and stores. Last year, sales climbed just 0.3% to $10.7 billion, which was a record one-day sales amount at the time, according to the company.

“This is the largest year-over-year gain in ShopperTrak’s National Retail Sales Estimate for Black Friday since the 8.3 percent increase we saw between 2007 and 2006,” said ShopperTrak founder Bill Martin. “Still, it’s just one day. It remains to be seen whether consumers will sustain this behavior through the holiday shopping season.”

However, sales have been strong throughout the entire month of November with retailers rolling out holiday deals earlier than ever. In the two weeks leading up to the week of Black Friday, retail sales were up 3.6% and 3.8%, respectively, ShopperTrak reported.

Online sales have also proven to be strong, with many big-box retailers and department stores offering deals online earlier this year.

More at CNN.

Opponents of President Obama are very vocal in saying the Recovery Act of 2009 did not succeed or create ANY jobs. After last night’s speech by the President regarding his new American Jobs Act, that talk about the 2009 stimulus ratched up again.

The evidence actually shows the stimulus (and other stimulative measures, including those of the Fed) worked, but ended too soon, before the private sector was ready to walk on its own.

Take a look at the graph above.

The pattern in job growth reversed course soon after passage of the Recovery Act, and broke zero — net job growth — in March of 2010.

But that’s only half of what this simple graph shows. Another piece of information is even more important. As the stimulus fades, the positive trends begin to falter: both GDP and job growth slow significantly, and unemployment stagnates at a highly elevated level.

The message of this simple graph is itself very simple: the stimulus worked. It prevented recession from becoming depression.

Is this hard, kids?

(source info via Jared Bernstein)

Very informative charts (from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities) that shows the massive debt to the country that the Bush Tax Cuts have added.

– In light blue – the large, but temporary, expenditures for TARP and other measures proposed by both the Bush and Obama administrations to avoid a second Great Depression, plus Obama stimulus spending. Notice how the TARP and Fannie/Freddie bailouts drop off quickly since they ended.

– In gold and yellow – the very large, but permanent and worsening, budgetary impact of the “Bush tax cuts” — which when first proposed back in the pre-9/11 era, were supposed to end in 2010 and were in response to what back then seemed to be the “problem” of a burgeoning surplus in federal accounts!

And, notice on the chart how budget problems would be on the path to self-correction, if the Bush cuts had lapsed as originally planned.

So when folks (like the Tea Partiers) talk about who’s policies got us to where…  well, print this out and show them some facts.

In this second chart, notice the blue line.  That shows how debt would level off if the Bush Tax Cuts – that favor the wealthy – were to expire.

March of this year marked the 13th month of private market job growth.  The gold bars represent the Bush administration, the blue bars represent the Obama administration.

While it’s taken longer than anyone would have chosen, it’s clear to see the direction we’re going.

Looking at the gold/Bush administration bars showing a deeper and deeper hole as more and more jobs were lost, and then the blue/Obama bars showing clear, steady improvement once his administration’s policies were implemented.

When you think about the next election,  which direction would you rather go in?

So I got to thinking about those people who say the country is headed in the “wrong direction.” And then I looked up a few facts – you know, those often inconvenient things… In the last two years since the end of the last administration, we’ve gone from losing 700,000 jobs a month the first few months after Bush left, to slowly but surely adding private sector jobs.  Check out the shape of the graph below.  Which direction do you think is the right one? The Dow Jones Industrial Average was 6,547 on March 9, 2009 – before any of Obama’s policies could come into effect. It closed today over 12,041.  Again, check out the direction. On top of all this, corporations are announcing record earnings.  Someone out there is making money, kids. Though this wasn’t Obama’s economic crisis, it is his economic recovery. The only thing that HASN’T happened is after the wealthiest top 2% – having had tax cuts for years – are not spending any of that money to create jobs. We kept hearing “lower taxes creates jobs.” Well, the tax cuts implemented in 2001, 2003 and extended in the lame duck session have been in effect for a long time. Where are the jobs? Or is it possible that the wealthy are taking their tax cuts and just pocketing the money while they squeeze more productivity out of fewer and fewer employees? When are those who are supposed to create jobs going to actually create them?