election

Will Obama secretly pass TPP trade deal?

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With all the time and money spent in writing, negotiating and promoting this huge trade deal (that mostly just benefits huge multinational corporations), can the American people really expect President Obama to throw it all away into a big bonfire? Especially after millions of dollars have been spent by special interest groups on his campaign and on the campaigns of all those in Congress who voted to give fast-track for TPP to Obama? I mean, really — where would the big pay-off be for all their corporate masters?

New York Post Claims Census Falsifies Unemployment Figures

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The New York Post is reporting an absolute bombshell story if true.  They claim the September 2012 unemployment report was manipulated and survey data was faked, just in time for the election.  The story quotes anonymous sources, insiders from the Census Bureau who claim to have falsified survey data for the unemployment report.

Pickin' The Bones of Election 2010

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political graveyard We now have various analysts pickin' the bones on election 2010, many trying to justify some political position or cause. This site already had it's say and proclaimed it was about jobs. What say others?

Public Citizen says Democrats who had strong positions on reforming trade agreements and policy won and those who didn't lost.

House Democrats that ran on fair trade platforms in competitive and open-seat races were three times as likely to survive the GOP tidal wave than Democrats who ran against fair trade, according to a comprehensive 182-race, 70-page report released by Public Citizen. The GOP tsunami obliterated many candidate-specific features of the midterm contests, but trade, job offshoring and/or government purchases of foreign-made goods were a stunningly persistent national focus of midterm election campaigns, with 205 candidates campaigning on these issues. A record number of 75 Republicans adopted some fair trade messaging as well, 43 of whom won their races. More than sixty races became “fair trade offs,” where both the Democrat and Republican ran on fair trade themes. Only 37 candidates campaigned in favor of more North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)-style trade agreements - about half of these candidates lost.

A "Decisive Defeat" But Is Anyone Winning?

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On the eve of Election 2010, most pollsters and pundits are predicting a decisive defeat for Democrats with most claiming this is a referendum of the Obama administration. But, what, exactly does this vote mean for the economy and U.S. middle class?

Reading the tea leaves, pun intended, one must wonder how the media can be so disconnected with what is really going on in America.

What are people so pissed about? Is it bi-partisanship, Obamacare, the Stimulus, taxes? Is it elected officials are not liberal, moderate, conservative, work across the aisle enough?

All of that is wrong.

As a site which has daily written about the United States economy, I can definitely say it's about jobs.

Wall Street got a bail out and bonuses, Americans got laid off and made poor. Special interests and even China got Stimulus, Americans got more jobs offshore outsourced and foreclosed upon. High frequency traders made billions, regular Americans lost their meager retirement.

Now there is pressure for Obama to shed himself of his advisers.

Among the complaints: Mr. Obama conveyed an incoherent message that didn't express what Democrats would do over the next two years if they retain power; he focused more on his own image than helping Democratic candidates; and the White House picked the wrong battle when it attacked Republicans for using "outside" money to pay for campaigns, an issue disconnected from voters' real-world anxieties.

Corporate Takeover Stalls in California - Healhens hold the line

Michael Collins
California

California's economic depression is the key campaign issue. The official state unemployment rate is 12.4%. When you add those who've simply given up looking for a job plus the marginally employed, the figure for the state is over 20%. Official unemployment in the San Joaquin Valley, a huge agribusiness region, ranges from 15% to 19%. Long the economic engine for the nation, the state is not accustomed to hard times.

The corporate takeover of California is on hold according to the latest polls out of the nation’s largest state. Just nine days before the election, the Los Angeles Times and University of Southern California poll shows a nearly impossible uphill battle for the big business ticket of former eBay CEO Meg Whitman and former HP CEO Carly Fiorina.

Among likely voters in the governor’s race, Brown leads Whitman 50% to 38%. In the race for United States Senator, two term Senator Barbara Boxer maintained an 8% lead. The leads by Democrats come from a brand new constituency, those who "never" go to church. More on that later.

Fed begins monetizing the deficit

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By Numerian

The Federal Reserve, in announcing the results of this week's meeting of the Open Market Committee, surprised the market by revealing it will begin purchasing US Treasury notes and bonds with the principal income it receives from its vast holdings of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage securities. This practice - wherein the Fed buys up US government securities and injects cash into the public market as payment for these securities - is a form of monetizing the debt.

The last time the Fed did this on a big scale was back in the 1960s when it attempted to mop up the excess Treasury securities that were flooding the market as a result of Lyndon Johnson's efforts to finance the Vietnam War. That Fed program was viewed at the time as a failure, since the cash the Fed put back into the economy in exchange for the securities was a big reason - perhaps the major reason - why price inflation accelerated from the late 1960s until a decade later, when Paul Volcker managed to squelch inflation once and for all with forbiddingly high interest rates.

Fraught with risk