economy

Screwing Around With Prosperity

September 27, 2010 By mario piperni

While Americans fret and argue about wars in Afghanistan, teabaggers, cutting taxes for the rich, idiot politicians from Alaska and Delaware and mosques in New York, here is what’s happening half a world away which will have more impact on the well-being of Americans than any of the rest. Thomas Friedman:

“China is doing moon shots. Yes, that’s plural. When I say “moon shots” I mean big, multibillion-dollar, 25-year-horizon, game-changing investments. China has at least four going now: one is building a network of ultramodern airports; another is building a web of high-speed trains connecting major cities; a third is in bioscience, where the Beijing Genomics Institute this year ordered 128 DNA sequencers — from America — giving China the largest number in the world in one institute to launch its own stem cell/genetic engineering industry; and, finally, Beijing just announced that it was providing $15 billion in seed money for the country’s leading auto and battery companies to create an electric car industry, starting in 20 pilot cities. In essence, China Inc. just named its dream team of 16-state-owned enterprises to move China off oil and into the next industrial growth engine: electric cars.”

“Not to worry. America today also has its own multibillion-dollar, 25-year-horizon, game-changing moon shot: fixing Afghanistan.”

“We’re out of balance — the balance between security and prosperity. We need to be in a race with China, not just Al Qaeda.”

So while Americans screw around with politics and nonsense, China is quietly and firmly establishing itself as a true superpower. And as Friedman notes, you will soon be “importing your new electric car from China just like you’re now importing your oil from Saudi Arabia.”

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Filed Under: economy, Energy Tagged With: economy, electric car, Energy, friedman, political issues

Poverty In America

September 16, 2010 By mario piperni

The numbers below tell the story and the pic above expresses the sentiment of too many fat-cat politicians who have lost touch with real Americans.

The number of people living in poverty has climbed to 14.3 percent of Americans, with the ranks of working-age poor reaching the highest level since at least 1965.

The Census Bureau says that about 43.6 million people, or 1 in 7, were in poverty last year. That’s up from 39.8 million, or 13.2 percent, in 2008.

The number of people lacking health insurance rose from 46.3 million to 50.7 million, due mostly to the loss of employer-provided health insurance during the recession.

And Republicans are running on a platform of repealing the health care bill and blocking tax cuts for 98% of Americans. Too surreal for words.

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Filed Under: economy Tagged With: economy, political issues, poverty

The Cost of War

September 8, 2010 By mario piperni

The numbers are staggering. Since 2001, the two wars have cost almost $1.1 trillion dollars.

Iraq: $745 billion
Afghanistan: $330 billion

Meanwhile, Republicans are making noise about the President’s jobs plan to spend $50 billion on the country’s infrastructure. ‘Too much for nothing’ is what they’re saying. Well, to put things into perspective, the current cost of waging war in Afghanistan is close to $2 billion a week. A week. And that’s for a war that cannot be won. Where’s the yelling about that?

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Filed Under: economy, war Tagged With: costs, economy, political issues, war

The Bush Tax Cuts

September 8, 2010 By mario piperni

It appears the President is hanging tough on this one.

President Obama on Wednesday will make clear that he opposes any compromise that would extend the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy beyond this year, officials said, adding a populist twist to an election-season economic package that is otherwise designed to entice support from big businesses and their Republican allies.

Mr. Obama’s opposition to allowing the high-end tax cuts to remain in place for even another year or two would be the signal many Congressional Democrats have been awaiting as they prepare for a showdown with Republicans on the issue and ends speculation that the White House might be open to an extension. Democrats say only the president can rally wavering lawmakers who, amid the party’s weakened poll numbers, feel increasingly vulnerable to Republican attacks if they let the top rates lapse at the end of this year as scheduled.

…by proposing to extend the rates for the 98 percent of households with income below $250,000 for couples and $200,000 for individuals — and insisting that federal income tax rates in 2011 go back to their pre-2001 levels for income above those cutoffs — he intends to cast the issue as a choice between supporting the middle class or giving breaks to the wealthy.

This should be a no-brainer. Extending the Bush tax cuts for the top 2% adds 700 billion to the deficit so if Dems back down on this one, it’ll be difficult to respect them in the morning.

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Filed Under: economy, taxes Tagged With: Bush, economy, political issues, tax cuts

The Economy: A Massive Case of Collective Doubt

August 30, 2010 By mario piperni

It’s your fault.

Why is the recovery faltering? There are many explanations: a depressed housing market; weaker-than-expected exports; cautious corporations. But consumers, representing 70 percent of the economy’s $14.5 trillion of spending, are the crux of the matter.

[...]

The recovery is a creature of confidence, or its absence. “In normal times, psychology doesn’t matter much. It reflects economic conditions,” says Zandi. “But in abnormal times, it’s the reverse. Psychology determines economic conditions.” What the boom and bust left is a massive case of collective doubt.

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Filed Under: economy Tagged With: economics 101, economy, political issues