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Forecast Manager for the New England Economic Partnership and economist with the New Hampshire Center for Policy Studies Dennis Delay says the state is set to gain all the jobs lost in this recession by early 2012. He also says that this recession, saw less job loss in the state than the recession of the late 80s and early 90s. During that recession, Republicans were in charge and Judd Gregg was Governor. It was not as severe or as deep nationwide as the present one left by Bush & Co. in 2007-08 when New Hampshire had a Democratic Governor and Democratic majorities in both chambers of the state legislature.
"The economic recovery is surprisingly broad-based," Delay said. "We've gained in manufacturing, construction, professional and business services, retail trade; we've seen job gains in government.
Unemployment in the state peaked at 7.1 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis in February 2010 and declined to 5.5 percent in September. The state is expected to release the October rate later today.
The present good news is being brought to you by Democrats. The policies and steady stewardship of the House and Senate over the last four years mitigated the recession's effect here.
We'll see whether it will be maintained, and who takes/gets credit in the event of success.
I found myself in a sour mood this morning by news of Chris Dodd trying to cut off Elizabeth Warren at the knees. I've since been somewhat buoyed by reading this article in the Washington Independent. The Republicans have gone out of their way to refer to the unemployed as lazy and shiftless, have said that they are chronically unemployed and have compared them to stray animals. Well, many unemployed people are fighting back - they're organizing, and according to Annie Lowry, it might make a big difference:
There are more than 30 million people left without work at some point during the course of the recession; 14.6 million are currently unemployed. As many as 4 million people have exhausted the maximum weeks of federal and state unemployment benefits. In each case, Jordan is among these millions, and for an uncountable number of people like him, the experience with income insecurity has led to a political awakening.
Among the biggest sites in the unemployment netroots is LayoffList, managed by Michael Thornton, a native of Rochester, N.Y. Thornton stared LayoffList in 2008; five months ago, he began writing articles and posting legislators' information. He now receives hundreds of emails and has logged more than a million hits. Thornton is finding that, rather than losing interest in politics since the end of the fight for extended benefits, the unemployed are "energized and motivated" and have started looking forward to the fall.
"Even Republicans say they aren't voting Republican anymore," the soft-spoken former technical writer says. "You have millions of unemployed people out there. If even half of them voted, they could swing a nationwide election."
While extending tax cuts for the wealthy and repealing the estate tax requires no offsets, any and all Federal help to those suffering from the Great Recession is held hostage to the deficit. Maybe people are paying attention despite the CW from MSM.
(Neat idea for a diary; good thing BH is free! - promoted by Dean Barker)
I believe in Yankee values of thrift, pluck, and luck. In tough times we learn to make do.
What have you cut back on? What do you do yourself instead of buy at a store ? How have your habits changed since the bottom dropped out ? Do you work two jobs, or none? How long have you been unemployed, or under employed? Do you think next year will be better for you than this one? Was last year the same, worse, or better for you? Do you have Health Insurance, are you behind on your bills?
See my unscientific poll below.It is a multi vote poll so have at it...
Our senior senator showed the people of New Hampshire how much he cares about our current economic distress yesterday by his vote on the President's jobs bill. This is a modest, bi-partisan bill that works through the private sector to encourage job creation. It eliminates the employer's share of the social security tax in the first year for any new jobs created as well as providing a $1000 per job tax credit. It also allows companies to accelerate capital depreciation expense, and helps states finance infrastructure work to promote construction jobs.
Not exactly earth shattering, but every little bit helps when we are in the worst recession in our lives.
(Michael Marsh knows a great deal about financial issues, tax policy and similar subjects. He makes this stuff understandable, and was a wonderful resource and asset to the state during his time as a representative. - promoted by Jennifer Daler)
This week the U.S. House passed a landmark bill that gives the government the power to better regulate the banking and financial industries. (Remember them- the guys who brought us this wonderful recession?) The bill includes meaningful consumer protection provisions, creates controls on the derivatives market (the thingies that got Bear Stearns, Lehman and AIG in such deep doo-doo in 2008) and gives the government the power to wind down too-big-to-fail banking firms whose collapse could destroy the entire financial system (this was a power we lacked last year when AIG was in such big trouble).
This chart is getting a lot of play in the blogosphere:
Look at the X axis in particular. Look how many years it has taken to recover from a gap the height of the current one - just the gap from where the green line drops below the others.
The more I study this chart, the more worried I get.
Senator Shaheen, Kathy suggested that you've been working to get the 60 votes to pass something. Thank you! Because we need a big stimulus bill, bigger than this, and we need it yesterday.
VP Biden stated this weekend that the Stimulus Bill projected creating "up to" 4M jobs. At a cost of nearly $1T, that would mean we'd be spending nearly $250K per $35K (1-year) job created, or 250K per $70K (2-year) job.
By contrast, if the funds were spent strictly on creating jobs, it would create 25M jobs!
This is another substantially "pork-laden, pet-project" bill, that will have little real effect on consumer confidence or turn around the looming Depression.
Swift, decisive government intervention in the financial and middle class sectors might have had a chance of averting disaster. But the TARP initiative was never capable of achieving its stated objective, now or ever, and neither is the pending Stimulus Bill.
We are about to walk over the ledge and into the abyss while the hyenas feed.
In 1932, at the rock bottom of the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt swept into office with the promise of bold reforms to jump-start the American economy. Although conservative critics of the day cast his ideas as too radical, policies implemented in The New Deal stabilized the banking system within one month, cut skyrocketing unemployment in half and increased our gross domestic product by 50 percent.
Over the past three decades, the pendulum has swung from this New Deal ideology to conservatism. Tax cuts for the rich were supposed to "trickle down" to the masses, spurring job creation and an economic boom. The current economic crisis we are experiencing has shown us that conservatism - tax cuts for the rich and bailing out big businesses - has failed. Tax cuts for the rich have only made the rich richer, the poor poorer... and the middle class isn't doing all that well either. Instead of the promised job creation, we find more and more of our jobs being shipped overseas while unemployment has skyrocketed to the highest level in a decade.
The recession is here and it's real. Many are losing their jobs, homes and health care. Others are maxing out their credit cards just to keep their heads above water. While some politicians call for piecemeal solutions and others declare that our problems are all in our heads, more and more Americans believe that things are only getting worse. As the bad news continues to pour in, people are looking to the government for leadership and answers. Polling over the last few months shows that 69 to 82 percent of voters now favor government intervention to save our struggling economy.
Our forefathers' original intent, as stated in the Constitution, was for government to "provide for the general welfare" of its citizens. Of the people, by the people and for the people has been corrupted into of the elites, by the lobbyists and for the very rich. It is time for every day Americans to take back our country from special interests. We need our political leaders to stand up to the right-wing political spin machine and do what is best for all Americans. Today, we need "The Next New Deal" to get our economy back on the right track.
Recently, more than a dozen members of Congress gathered to voice their support for Invest in America's Future, a plan that would make public investments in our economy and usher in a new era of economic security, opportunity and prosperity. The plan would invest in 21st century jobs, guarantee quality, affordable health care for all, strengthen our educational system and eliminate our dependence on foreign oil.
We applaud the visionary members of Congress - from Maryland to California - who have chosen to step up to the plate before it was politically expedient. America is in crisis and the time to act is now. People are hurting and demanding change. We urge you to visit our website where you can show your support for the plan, contact your representatives and tell them we need to invest in our economy right here at home.
For more information on the Invest in America's Future plan, visit www.nextnewdeal.org.
Robert Reich sounds the alarm and makes the case for serious deficit spending by the federal government (I assume he means here in America rather than a country half a world away). Emphasis mine.
It's now clear the Fed can't and won't stimulate the economy. This leaves fiscal policy as the sole remaining vehicle. Distributing those little stimulus checks this month were like dispensing aspirin for pneumonia. Blue-dog Democrats, Calvin Coolidge Republicans, and Ross Perot Independents all must understand the critical importance of deficit spending right now. It's all we have left.
He ends with the somewhat frightening
Unless fiscal policy is unleashed, the current recession has a 50-50 chance of turning into something far worse by this time next year.
And tonight I read the Dow has had the worse June since 1930.
What steps are you taking to prepare "For something far worse"?
Last month the Federal Reserve stepped in with $30 billion in tax payer money to bail out the failing Bear Sterns investment bank. The argument was that Bear Stearns was "too big to fail."
As part of the deal, J.P. Morgan Chase, a major Wall Street bank, will buy Bear Stearns for a bargain-basement price, paying $2 a share for an institution that still plays a central role in executing financial transactions. Bear Stearns stock closed at $57 on Thursday and $30 on Friday. J.P. Morgan was unwilling to assume the risk of many of Bear Stearns's mortgage and other complicated assets, so the Federal Reserve agreed to take on the risk of about $30 billion worth of those investments.
The Fed "is working to promote liquid, well-functioning financial markets, which are essential for economic growth," Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said in a conference call with reporters last night. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., who was deeply involved in the talks though not a formal party to them, indicated support for the actions.
The Fed's moves were meant to reverse a rising tide of panic that has buffeted Wall Street as banks and other institutions have found it increasingly difficult to get credit.
This report from the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities shows that the states are now being hit hard by the same hard economic times that dropped Bear Sterns. And New Hampshire is no exception:
Substantial cuts are made to NH health care programs. The $22 million cut from New Hampshire's Department of Health and Human Services the state's largest department included $7 million in payments to hospitals for patients receiving Medicaid, state-federal health care for the poor and disabled. The impact of the cut is deeper when the loss of matching federal funding is taken into account.
Rising number of families across NH need food stamps. Figures reflect increased demand for other social services, as rising food and fuel costs drive more residents to food pantries.
Two things jump out at me:
The amount of U.S. taxpayer money risked to bailout Bear Stearns -- $30 billion -- is almost as much as what it would take to bail out the 22 states that are experiencing shortfalls this year.
Bear Stearns is considered "too big to fail" because its failing threatens other big Wall Street entities. The 22 states who are sinking under mountains of debt will have to cut their spending and that will hurt millions of Americans.
As the Center on Budget & Policy report points out, those consequences will be severe:
In states facing budget gaps, the consequences could be severe -- for residents as well as the economy. Unlike the federal government, states cannot run deficits when the economy turns down; they must cut expenditures, raise taxes, or draw down reserve funds to balance their budgets. Even if the economy does not fall into a recession as it did in the earlier part of this decade, actions will have to be taken to close the budget gaps states are now identifying. The experience of the last recession is instructive as to what kinds of actions states may take.
Cuts in services like health and education. In the last recession, some 34 states cut eligibility for public health programs, causing well over 1 million people to lose health coverage, and at least 23 states cut eligibility for child care subsidies or otherwise limited access to child care. In addition, 34 states cut real per-pupil aid to school districts for K-12 education between 2002 and 2004, resulting in higher fees for textbooks and courses, shorter school days, fewer personnel, and reduced transportation.
Tax increases. Tax increases may be needed to prevent the types of service cuts described above. However, the taxes states often raise during economic downturns are regressive -- that is, they fall most heavily on lower-income residents.
Cuts in local services or increases in local taxes. While the property tax is usually the most stable revenue source during an economic downturn, that is not the case now. If property tax revenues decline because of the bursting of the housing bubble, localities and schools will either have to get more aid from the state -- a difficult proposition when states themselves are running deficits -- or reduce expenditures on schools, public safety, and other services.
There's a lot more detail on consequences of letting a majority of our states go into budget shortfall here.
MoveOn.org talked me into hosting an event related to their new "Iraq and Recession Report." This report is based on a poll which shows that New Hampshire voters are all too well aware of a reality which John E. Sununu and his fellow Republicans seem oblivious to: that we cannot afford to fight an endless and pointless war in a time of recession. 60% of Granite Staters polled stated that they were very worried about the economy, and 46% said that eneding the war would help.
We will present the report to Sen. Sununu (who presumably will not actually be there) at this local office at 1 NH Avenue, in the Pease International Tradeport in Portsmouth, NH on Thursday April 24 @ 11am.
It's not if there is a recession, but how severe (h/t DHinMI):
An analysis of government data by The Washington Post found that prices have risen 9.2 percent since 2006 for the groceries, gasoline, health care and other basics that a middle-income American family has little choice but to consume. That would cost such a family, which made $45,000 on average in 2006, an extra $972 per year, assuming it did not buy less of such items because of higher prices. For a broad range of goods on which it is easier to scrimp -- such as restaurant meals, alcoholic beverages, new cars, furniture, and clothing -- prices have risen 2.4 percent.
Wages for typical workers, meanwhile, have been rising slowly. In that same time span, average earnings for a non-managerial worker rose about 5 percent. This contradiction -- high inflation for staples, low inflation for luxuries and in wages -- helps explain why American workers felt squeezed even before the recent economic distress began.
I don't know about you, but reading this actually makes me feel better, if only in the sense that I recognize that I'm not all alone. You see, I don't do a whole lot of discretionary spending - I'm a pretty boring consumer who focuses on the basics - food, gas, utilities. I don't own a TV, or the cable/satellite that goes along with it, I don't use a cell phone unless I absolutely have to. I try to grow some of the food I eat. I've tried to "green" my energy wherever I can afford to. Moreover, I'm even more boring when it comes to the basic structure of my finances - traditional 30yr mortgage with no PMI and a healthy down payment, no credit card debt - something I have been scratching together for a lifetime from beginnings in the lower middle class under Reaganomics. But now I feel like I'm rather very quickly sinking under some pretty dramatic price increases. I now regularly think about where I need to drive, and how far I can strip the cupboards before going food shopping again.
The first step to recovery is acknowledging the problem. Please use this thread to chime in on the state of your oikonomika (household accounts, whence we get the very term economics).
Oh, and thanks for the good times, George and John E. You can bet I'll remember it come November.
Adding: I almost forgot - home heating costs. through a mix of design and luck, I no longer use oil or gas to heat my home, so I can't speak with as much authority on that front, but there's no question this is another monster that's doing serious damage to northern New England pocketbooks.
