Posts
Precisely one year ago, we lucky taxpayers took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance giants that contributed mightily to the wild and crazy home-loan-boom-turned-bust. . . . According to the company’s most recent quarterly financial statement, the Treasury will, by Sept. 30, have handed over $45 billion to shore up the company’s net worth. . . .Read the rest. Meanwhile, let's talk jobless "recovery":
As a result of the Fannie takeover, taxpayers are paying millions of dollars in legal defense bills for three top former executives, including Franklin D. Raines, who left the company in late 2004 under accusations of accounting improprieties. From Sept. 6, 2008, to July 21, these legal payments totaled $6.3 million. . . .
Many experts envision a jobless recovery, in which the economy grows but job losses persist. . . .And, hey, how's that stimulus workin' for ya?
After the government unleashed $787 billion to stimulate economic growth, and after it bailed out financial institutions and the auto industry, the unemployment rate exceeds worst-case projections envisioned by the administration early this year. . . .
If the jobless rate continues to climb, as is widely expected, that could generate pressure for another stimulus spending package. But given intensifying concern about the size of federal budget deficits -- now projected to exceed $9 trillion within a decade -- any new spending could be politically perilous.
It was just five months ago that Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. made the New Flyer bus factory [in St. Cloud, Minn.] a symbol of the stimulus. With several cabinet secretaries in tow, he held a town-hall-style meeting at the factory, where he praised the company as "an example of the future" and said that it stood to get more orders for its hybrid electric buses thanks to the $8.4 billion that the stimulus law devotes to mass transit.Oh, yes -- the joy of misery!
But last month, the company that administration officials had pictured as a stimulus success story began laying off 320 people, or 13 percent of its work force . . .
UPDATE: Now a Memeorandum thread (although omitting me so far).
Many experts envision a jobless recovery, in which the economy grows but job losses persist
ReplyDeleteFrom here, in the trenches of HR in the Industrial Midwest, that IS a real possibility.
Recognize that the schemers who assembled Porkulus back-loaded the spending to push most "job-gains" into the first half of '10--with the express purpose of fattening wallets just before the '10 elections.
Now it may have been for naught?
Naught really. It will be a 50-100 seat Dem loss in November (House alone,) and an easy 5 seat loss in the Senate.
IF there's not an armed revolt sooner.
interesting I would really like to see a rebound on this recession stuff any day soon because I am feeling empty on many of my investments.
ReplyDelete