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So much for that second-half rebound. Truth be told, that was always more of a wish than a serious forecast, happy talk from the Fed and Wall Street desperate to get things back to normal. It ain't gonna happen. Not this summer. Not this fall. Not even next winter. This thing's going down, fast and hard. Corporate bankruptcies, bond defaults, bank failures, hedge fund meltdowns and 6 percent unemployment. We're caught in one of those vicious, downward spirals that, once it gets going, is very hard to pull out of. Only this will be a different kind of recession --...

The euro, worth 83 cents in the early George W. Bush years, is at $1.45. The British pound is back up over $2, the highest level since the Carter era. The Canadian dollar, which used to be worth 65 cents, is worth more than the U.S. dollar for the first time in half a century. Oil is over $90 a barrel. Gold, down to $260 an ounce not so long ago, has hit $800. Have gold, silver, oil, the euro, the pound and the Canadian dollar all suddenly soared in value in just a few years? Nope. The dollar has...

<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Countrywide Financial Corp Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo said on Thursday the U.S. housing downturn is likely to lead the country into recession, but that the largest U.S. mortgage lender will survive.</p> <p>In an interview, Mozilo also said that to promote liquidity, the U.S. Federal Reserve should cut the rate it charges banks to borrow.</p>

NEW YORK - Bad credit has supplanted terrorism as the gravest immediate risk threatening the economy, a key national research group reported Monday. Borrowers' withering ability to pay their bills and the subsequent fallout in the credit markets this summer topped the list of short-term risks on peoples' minds, according to a survey of 258 members conducted by the National Association of Business Economics. NABE, a Washington-based association, said 32 percent of its surveyed members cited loan defaults and excessive debt as their biggest near-term concern. Only 20 percent of members cited defense and terrorism as their biggest immediate worry,...

Subprime-battered mortgage lenders are shutting down, fewer homes are being built, and even some of the big U.S. retailers are planning conservatively for Christmas holiday sales. It will take a few months to show up in the economic data that Wall Street and the Federal Reserve watch, but the slowing U.S. economy is hitting the job market, and economists say it is only a matter of time before unemployment ticks up. "Growth is skimming along at around 2 percent, and that is not strong enough to keep the unemployment rate from rising," said Brian Bethune, U.S. economist with Global Insight...

LONDON (CNNMoney.com) -- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the current turmoil in financial markets will slow economic growth but should not spark a recession, according to a report published Thursday. Paulson told the Wall Street Journal that the turmoil "will extract a penalty on the growth rate" of the U.S. economy, but that "the economy and the markets are strong enough to absorb the losses" without triggering a recession. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson expects the current market turmoil will slow U.S. economic growth, but he doesn't see a recession occurring. Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs (Charts, Fortune 500),...

Dec. 11, 2006 Greenspan sees a sinking dollar Bloomberg News Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the dollar will probably keep falling because it's unlikely that international fund managers will continue to increase their allocations to the U.S. currency. Russia and other oil-producing currencies are shifting their assets out of dollars toward the euro and yen, a Bank for International Settlements quarterly report showed Monday. Greenspan said the dollar, heading for its fourth annual decline in the past five years, will probably keep falling until the U.S. current-account deficit diminishes. "It's imprudent to hold everything in one currency," Greenspan...

Plunging dollar will set world markets reeling Heather Stewart, economics correspondent Sunday December 3, 2006 The Observer The slowdown in the US economy, which has sent the dollar into freefall over the past fortnight, will have devastating knock-on effects in markets around the world, analysts warn. As the US slows, and consumers in the world's biggest economy feel the buying power of the dollar in their pocket declining, global growth will be hit hard, economists say. The greenback took yet another turn for the worse on Friday, after a survey of the US manufacturing sector showed output declining for the...

AP Home Sales Plummet in 38 States in 3Q Monday November 20 By Lauren Villagran, AP Business Writer Third-Quarter Home Sales Plummet in 38 States During the Summer; Home Prices Also Tumble NEW YORK (AP) -- The feeble U.S. housing market showed more frailty when third-quarter home sales plummeted in 38 states, hitting Nevada, Arizona, Florida and California particularly hard, government data showed on Monday. The once-booming real estate market's persistent weakness over the past year has reined in expectations for economic growth but hasn't been severe enough to offset a rising stock market, lower gas prices and improved consumer...

One of the many benefits of the now-cooling housing boom — both to consumers and the U.S. economy — was the huge pile of cash extracted in the form of home equity loans and “cash-out” mortgage refinancings. But with home prices flattening, and that multibillion-dollar piggy bank drying up, can consumers continue the shopping spree that accounts for more than two-thirds of the U.S. economy? There was fresh evidence of the housing slump this week, as separate government reports showed prices of both new and existing homes fell year-over year in August. For existing homes, it was the first year-over-year...

Gerard Herard was able to finally purchase a home in 2003 through a $225,070 mortgage from Security Atlantic Mortgage. His payments on the quaint Totowa Avenue house in Paterson were a reasonable $1,300 a month. But Herard's payments have since increased to $2,200 a month and the mortgage has grown, not shrunk, to roughly $300,000. Herard is not entirely sure why his situation changed so dramatically and is struggling to deal with the increase. "I'm trying to climb a steep ladder," said Herard, 53. In recent years, lenders have lured scores of homeowners to untraditional mortgages with changing terms. Many...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investment bank HSBC has revised downward its forecast for 2007 economic growth and cautioned that the risk of an outright recession is growing as a retreat in housing threatens household balance sheets. ADVERTISEMENT The company argues that while corporate profits have remained sky-high, the incomes of most Americans have effectively fallen over the last 18 months. That, say economists Stephen King and Ian Morris, could be a recipe for hard times in an economy that relies on consumers for over two-thirds of its strength. "Never before have households been so hard hit at a time companies...

With millions of adjustable-rate mortgages about to reset this fall, experts expect a wave of foreclosures by Americans in every income bracket. Here's why they could soar in late 2006 and beyond: Those easy-mortgage chickens are coming home to roost. This fall the adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) that millions of Americans took out during the recent housing boom will be reset, and many homeowners will see their monthly mortgage payments shoot up by as much as 20%. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, of all mortgages financed in 2005, 36% were ARMs -- the highest ever. This is a matter of...

"In 376 a large band of Gothic refugees arrived at the Empire's Danube frontier, asking for asylum. In a complete break with established Roman policy, they were allowed in, unsubdued. They revolted, and within two years had defeated and killed the emperor Valens -- the one who had received them -- along with two-thirds of his army, at the battle of Hadrianople." So writes Oxford's Peter Heather in "Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians," who is convinced that Valens' welcoming of the Goths was the decision that sealed the fate of the empire....

Better cancel those holidays. We now have a date for Armageddon, and it's a week on Tuesday - August 22. This information comes from no lesser source than the Wall Street Journal, where Bernard Lewis, President Bush's favourite historian, provides the details. "In Islam, as in Judaism and Christianity," the professor writes, "there are certain beliefs concerning the cosmic struggle at the end of time - Gog and Magog, anti-Christ, Armageddon, and for Shiite Muslims, the long-awaited return of the Hidden Imam, ending in the final victory of the forces of good over evil, however these may be defined. "Mr...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. I am surprised at the recent outrage regarding the sale of American port operations to a United Arab Emirates' company, President Bush's proposal allowing foreign ownership of domestic airlines, etc. After all, we have enjoyed more than 25 years of continuous and growing trade deficits. And why not, if foreigners are willing to ship us more goods than we ship them, good for us as it enables us to consume more than we as a nation produce. Unfortunately, there is just one problem, the only reason foreigners would continue shipping us...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. The issue: America's free-trade myth Our view: Middle-class America has paid a high price for these policies, but where's the payoff? When President Bush visited India last week to strike a deal expanding that country's nuclear capability, he couldn't avoid questions about the estimated 162,000 U.S. workers who lost their jobs to overseas outsourcing in 2004 alone, with the bulk of those jobs going to India and China. But you could bet your unemployment check that he wasn't backing down on his policy of allowing U.S. companies to profit off of...

-snip- Dissenters say our prosperity is hollow. While the economy appears healthy, a disease is eating away inside, a disease that Dr. Greenspan has been treating with oxycontin. The chairman, they say, was a friend to presidents and kept them happy and himself in power by the greatest expansion of money and credit in history. And just as the easy-money Fed policies of the Hoover-Coolidge era led to the crash of ’29, a day of reckoning is ahead. -snip-

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Downward trends in U.S. manufacturing are threatening the nation's long-term economic growth and living standards, according to a new report from two industrial trade groups. Leadership and innovation also are at risk as fewer young people choose manufacturing for a career, says the report from the National Association of Manufacturers and the Council of Manufacturing Associations, based in Washington, D.C. "Our nation cannot afford to lose its manufacturing innovation edge and the wealth it generates," said Jerry Jasinowski, president of the Manufacturing Institute, the research arm of the NAM. Industrial output...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Inspired by a reader who sent a list of once American corporations who's profits are no longer funneled to the hard-working American employee, I investigated the subject. The clip that landed on my desk was from "America is Selling Out," published in The American Conservative, December, 2005. As I digested, emotionally charged from the publication's Web site at www.economyincrisis.org, I agreed with some of the information, discarded the sensational propaganda and extrapolated my take on the issues' raw facts. From what I've experienced and witnessed first-hand, I consider the current state...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. The Labor Department reported the economy added 108,000 payroll jobs in December. The consensus forecast was 207,000, and my forecast, published by Reuters was 180,000. Unemployment fell to 4.9 percent, mainly because fewer adults chose to participate in the labor force. In the fourth quarter, 438,000 jobs were added, and this is consistent with GDP growth in the range of 3.0 to 3.5 percent Economic growth appears to be moderating from the red hot numbers posted in the third quarter, and if the Fed does not push interest rates too much...

Forced outsourcing of design and manufacturing because of so-called free trade, foreign insourcing with US subsidies, and imported foreign labor is crippling US high tech economy. Paul Craig Roberts wrote about this in March 2005. A country cannot be a superpower without a high tech economy, and America's high tech economy is eroding as I write. The erosion began when US corporations outsourced manufacturing. Today many US companies are little more than a brand name selling goods made in Asia. Corporate outsourcers and their apologists presented the loss of manufacturing capability as a positive development. Manufacturing, they said, was the...

Many feared George W. Bush would nominate a Supreme Court justice in the mold of David Souter, Anthony Kenney or Sandra Day O'Connor – Republicans in name only, with no real principles or convictions, the kind of people who would be swept up by the Beltway culture to become, at best, unpredictable votes in future rulings. It appears that fear has been unfounded. In fact, in nominating Harriet Miers, Bush, who pledged to seek out candidates in the mold of Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, has found someone with more in common with the likes of activist Ruth Bader Ginsburg....

George W. Bush has just rung the death knell for his presidency. For the Supreme Court of the United States, a president under fire for cronyism has chosen the ultimate crony. For the highest court in the land, a president criticized for a lack of gravitas has chosen a woman who the president's own former speechwriter describes as "a taut, nervous, anxious personality." For one of the nine highest legal positions in the entire country, this president has ignored dozens of candidates with impeccable credentials -- top law school honors, judicial clerkships, distinguished careers in academia, lengthy experience arguing cases...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. U.S. Trade Flows Number of full containers that arrived in Port of Los Angeles, July, 1999 (imports): 176,444 Number of full containers that arrived in Port of Los Angeles, July, 2005 (imports): 352,417 Number of full containers that left Port of Los Angeles, July, 1999 (exports): 66,948 Number of empty containers that left Port of Los Angeles, July, 1999 (exports): 78,280 Number of full containers that left Port of Los Angeles, July, 2005 (exports): 97,457 Number of empty containers that left Port of Los Angeles, July, 2005 (exports): 194,116 Percentage of...

Friday night, the Bush presidency was in grave trouble. TV reporters at the New Orleans convention center and Superdome were fairly weeping for food and water for the visibly suffering thousands, on the fifth day after Katrina hit. Saturday, the cavalry had arrived. All day, the truckloads of troops, helicopters and relief columns moved in. By nightfall, the convention center and Superdome had been evacuated, and reporters who had been howling only hours before were cheering. By Sunday, responsibility for the disaster was being shifted by Bush aides and media allies to the mayor of New Orleans and Louisiana Gov....

[...] It's progressive politicians who should be paying more attention. More than a hundred years ago, Charles Dickens's cockeyed optimist, Wilkins Micawber, explained to David Copperfield that the difference between happiness and misery involves the positive or negative difference between income and expenses. [...] As the government confirmed once again last week, rising costs have outpaced stagnant wages in ten of the last 12 months. [...] The Bush administration is in an ideological straitjacket. But progressive politicians have several issues they should raise, particularly long overdue increases in the minimum wage and the earned income tax credit -- kitchen table...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. INDIANAPOLIS - DaimlerChrysler AG will close its Indianapolis foundry and eliminate 881 jobs by Sept. 30, reducing the automaker's once formidable Indiana manufacturing presence to just the city of Kokomo. DaimlerChrysler recently notified the Indiana Department of Workforce Development of the closure under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, Act. The law requires employers to give 60 days notice before certain plant closings and layoffs. The loss of 881 jobs is the largest in Indiana under WARN this year. A provision in the four-year labor agreement struck by the...

The New GOP Betrays America Diane Alden Thursday, Aug. 11, 2005 The biblical truth "Hope deferred makes the heart sick" described my state of mind on July 27, 2005. That was when the House Republican leadership stopped the clock on the CAFTA vote because they didn't like the way it was going. It gets more and more difficult to write about politics. The hope some of us placed in Republicans was misplaced. We had hope they might make a small attempt to lead this nation back to constitutional government: limited government. Hoping Republicans will be conservative, constitutional or less venal...

The United States continues its descent into the Third World, but you would never know it from news reports of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' July payroll jobs release. The media give a bare-bones jobs report that is misleading. The public heard that 207,000 jobs were created in July. If not a reassuring figure, at least it is not a disturbing one. On the surface, things look to be pretty much OK. It is when you look into the composition of these jobs that the concern arises. Of the new jobs, 26,000 (about 13 percent) are tax-supported government jobs. That...

The June payroll jobs report did not receive much attention due to the July 4 holiday, but the depressing 21st century job performance of the U.S. economy continues unabated. Only 144,000 private sector jobs were created, each one of which was in domestic services. Fifty-six thousand jobs were created in professional and business services, about half of which are in administrative and waste services. Thirty-eight thousand jobs were created in education and health services, almost all of which are in health care and social assistance. Nineteen thousand jobs were created in leisure and hospitality, almost all of which are waitresses...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. EMPORIA, Kan. - Days after merging with a rival, the owners of a Kansas radiator plant said Monday the factory will close in September and leave 130 people unemployed. The Modine Manufacturing Co. plant opened in Emporia in 1973 to build sheet-metal radiators for Ford Motor Co. On Friday, Modine's aftermarket division merged with Transpro Inc., a Connecticut-based competitor, to form Proliance International Inc. The merger will move production to two existing plants in Mexico, and the Emporia facility will be sold. Two regional plants and branch distribution centers in Denver...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Proponents of so-called "free" trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which I opposed, have long promised endless riches for U.S. workers, farmers, businesses and economy. They've been wrong on all counts. Failed U.S. trade policies have led to the export of millions of high-paying American jobs; decline in U.S. living standards; soaring trade deficits; and a significant erosion of U.S. sovereignty to international trade bureaucrats. Despite this unbroken record of failure, the House is expected to vote before August on an agreement the Bush administration negotiated to...

In a recent interview on CNBC with Ron Insana, one of the "old-timer" funds manager, Julian Robertson, predicted "utter global collapse" as a consequence of the bursting of the world-wide property bubble. Often called "Never Been Wrong Robertson", the former head of Tiger Management (once the largest hedge fund in the world), is extremely worried about the speculative bubble in real estate. Specifically, he is very worried about a world that is sustained by American consumer spending which is in turn 1/4 sustained by a property bubble. He predicts that 20 million people could lose their homes once the property...

Washington -- DURING the cold war, as the Soviet economic system slowly unraveled, internal reform was impossible because highly placed officials who recognized the systemic disorders could not talk about them honestly. The United States is now in an equivalent predicament. Its weakening position in the global trading system is obvious and ominous, yet leaders in politics, business, finance and the news media are not willing to discuss candidly what is happening and why. Instead, they recycle the usual bromides about the benefits of free trade and assurances that everything will work out for the best. Much like Soviet leaders,...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. The proposed trade pact is fatally flawed in its present form A current radio commercial urges Alabamians to oppose CAFTA "because CAFTA rhymes with NAFTA" and references the opposition to NAFTA of H. Ross Perot, the erstwhile presidential candidate who once claimed President George H.W. Bush was plotting to disrupt Perot's daughter's wedding. No, that ad doesn't give you much meat to chew on. Anyone who would oppose the Central American Free Trade Agreement (or CAFTA-DR, now that leaders in the Dominican Republic have come aboard) on the basis of that...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. As data gathered in the real world of international rivalry continues to show an expanding U.S. trade deficit that will likely hit $700 billion this year (up from $617 billion last year), a great wailing is heard from the Defenders of Free Trade. Their libertarian economic faith is immune to facts, either from present observation or historical experience. That's what makes it a secular religion. Nothing better reveals its reliance on superstition and ignorance than how readily its adherents resort to falsehoods to defend its dogma. Consider two recent columns that...

These are not the halcyon days of the Republicans' champion of open borders and free trade, Jack Kemp. The "Minutemen," who appeared in Cochise County, Ariz., April 1 to highlight the invasion President Bush will not halt, are being hailed by conservative media and congressmen as patriots, as they are dismissed by the president as "irrational vigilantes." Comes now the trade shocker for February. The deficit hit an all-time monthly record: $61 billion. The annual U.S. trade deficit is now running at $717 billion, $100 billion above the 2004 record. Smelling political capital, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer are co-sponsoring...

In March, the U.S. economy created a paltry 111,000 private sector jobs, half the expected amount. Following a well-established pattern, U.S. job growth was concentrated in domestic services: waitresses and bartenders, construction, administrative and waste services, and health care and social assistance. In the 21st century, the U.S. economy has ceased to create jobs in knowledge industries or information technology (IT). It has been a long time since any jobs were created in export and import-competitive sectors. The Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts no change in the new pattern of U.S. payroll job growth. Outsourcing and offshore production have reduced...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. It is difficult to decide whether the trade figures for 2004 or the Bush Administration's reaction to them indicate the greater danger to the American economy and nation. Last year's trade deficit hit $617.7 billion -- surpassing the record 2003 deficit by 24 percent. The deficit in goods was even higher, at $666.2 billion. The imbalance increased as a share of the economy to 5.3 percent of gross domestic product, up from 4.5 percent in 2003. This is a situation usually associated with underdeveloped countries on the brink of financial collapse....

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Mr. Tonelson, you follow business and industry [for the United States Business and Industry Council]. ... Who are your members? Our members are mainly small and medium-sized manufacturing companies; that is to say, companies that employ fewer than 500 workers. And all kinds of industries? That's right, but mainly what people often refer to as smokestack industries, medium-tech industries; industries that bend and cut and shape metal in various ways, and they supply larger industries like the auto industry or the machine-tool industry or the plastics industry. ... So what have...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Any close election is bound to be followed by bursts of Monday morning quarterbacking. Even by this standard, however, the 2004 presidential race looks like a monument to missed opportunities on both sides. The morning right after the election, my friend Ted Bush, who worked on trade issues for retiring Illinois Democratic Congressman William Lipinski, focused on his party´s contender, John Kerry. Had Kerry blown Ohio because of wimpy positions on trade and jobs issues? After all, Ted noted, the initial exit polls showed that economic and jobs issues were number...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. HYDERABAD, India (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) will hire several hundred new staff at its new Indian campus in the next year, its chief executive said on Monday, in a move aimed at strengthening its presence in Asia's fourth-biggest economy. The world's largest software maker inaugurated the campus, its biggest outside the United States, at a ceremony on Monday. Microsoft employs some 800 people in product development and support services in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad. India's low-cost, IT-savvy and English-speaking workforce is attracting a growing number...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. MOUNTAINTOP, Pa. - A Luzerne County perfume factory is closing at the end of the year, leaving 200 people out of work. New Dana Perfumes Inc., the maker of fragrances including Tabu, English Leather and Love's Baby Soft, will close its plant in Wright Township, said Peter Schreiber of Dimeling, Schreiber & Park, the Philadelphia investment firm that bought the perfume-manufacturing operation in July 1999 Dana Classic Fragrances Inc., which holds the trademark to the names and formulas and markets and sells the perfumes, will continue to operate - but officials...

GANGES TOWNSHIP -- Saying its U.S. mushroom business has been a cash drain, a Canadian company will close its three stateside operations, including a mushroom farm and processing plant near Fennville. More than 200 people will be out of work after Christmas when the Money's Foods mushroom plant in Ganges Township closes its doors. It produced fresh mushrooms for supermarkets and processed for companies that make soups and sauces. "We feel badly about this because the people have worked very hard trying to make this successful. We've run out of cash and can't keep on supporting it," said Keith Potter,...

November 22, 2004 issue Copyright © 2004 The American Conservative Goodbye, Dollar—and Empire by Pat Buchanan Whoever wins Nov. 2, two predictions seem solid: the mighty U.S. dollar has begun an inexorable decline, and the American empire is coming to an end. For whether George W. Bush wins or loses, America is headed for a political gridlock that will rule out any bipartisan assault on our “twin deficits.” No matter who wins, the House Republicans of Tom DeLay will retain the numbers to veto any tax increase, while Democrats will retain the strength to prevent any serious cuts in entitlements....

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. New Delhi, Nov. 10 (NNN): America is likely to lose its overall lead in technology and innovation sector to Asian nations such as India, China, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan and Singapore, according to a top foreign policy expert. Adam Segal, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations writes in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs that though American technical dominance remains solid, the globalisation of research and development is exerting considerable pressure on the American system. In addition to the increasing science and research and development budgets, India, China, South...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. WAXAHACHIE, Texas - The planned closing of a North Texas refrigeration plant threatens to eliminate more than 500 jobs, with most of the work expected to be transferred to Mexico. The head of a union representing Tyler Refrigeration Co. employees says the plant south of Dallas will close next year. The plant is to begin reducing operations after the first of the year, with the job cuts expected to begin in the latter half of 2005, union officials told the Waxahachie Daily Light for a story in Sunday's editions. City officials...

Anchor Glass Container Corp. closed Thursday, the same day President Bush outlined his second term's emphasis on small business and concern for American interests. Union employees received word Thursday evening. Roughly 350 of them are now out of work. The 3 to 11 shift was sent home, according to Charles Tressler, president of Union Local 149 of the Glass, Molders, Pottery, Plastics and Allied Workers International Union (GMP). "The plant is closed," Tressler said. "The machines were shut down at 7:30 p.m. The reason they gave was economic. The glass industry is softer. There are fewer sales. "Once the company...