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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bentway who wrote (579986)	8/8/2010 11:48:20 AM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 1576015

Krugman and Volcker aren't like-minded. Summers has been a disaster though.

To: bentway who wrote (579986)	8/8/2010 2:58:14 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1576015

This may be true and shipping jobs overseas may contribute to the problem but the real issue is that industry is sitting on tons of cash. In earnings CC after earnings CC during this latest quarter, companies reported growing cash reserves. In lieu of hiring new people, they are increasing the hours of current employees. Look at the employment report from Friday: biz.yahoo.com Hourly earnings and the work week went up. Companies are trying to do more with the same number of employees. Frankly, I think its a class thing. Some heads of companies don't like Obama's agenda......I hear it every day on TSCM. They know if employment ticks up that will make Obama look good. They don't want more regulation.........they liked things under Bush just fine. So they need to keep Obama looking bad. The global economy is ticking up very nicely. S. America, Australia, SE Asia and China are near boom conditions. Japan is chugging along. Europe is recovering smartly......particularly N. Europe. Canada is doing well. The prime laggard.......the US. And you think its Larry Summers fault? If only he was that powerful. This economic team has been a disaster from the start, and Larry Summers should be canned, period...Obama needs Krugman and Volcker and a few like-minded economists on his staff, and he needs to get as engaged in understanding economics as he has been in medical care. Since we started shipping manufacturing jobs overseas in the '90's (for shame, Bill Clinton) each recession has taken longer and longer for employment to recover to its previous peak level. There is a reason for this, and neither Dems nor Republicans will point it out because too many oxen would be gored; we have shipped our manufacturing overseas via NAFTA....whereas manufacturing is always the first place jobs are added in a recovery, after inventory draw-downs are complete. So now, China has almost completely recovered; South Korea has almost completely recovered. We have no way to fuel the recovery. Essentially we have shot ourselves, not only in the foot, but also perilously close to our heart. If our recovery parallels the last two recessions but from a deeper trough, it will be a decade before we recover. For shame Bill Clinton and George Bush!

To: bentway who wrote (579986)	8/8/2010 3:03:37 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1576015

In case you doubt what I am saying....... Hope for economy in strong manufacturing reports By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER The Associated Press People aren't spending money like they used to. Unemployment is still flirting with double digits. And the housing market is still shaky. So the future looks bleak for the economy, right? Not necessarily. A handful of surprisingly good earnings reports Thursday suggested that some of the major U.S. companies that make things and move them around — including Caterpillar, 3M and UPS — could lead the way to an economic recovery. It would be an unusual path back to better times. Consumer spending and housing usually lead the way. But all three of those economic bellwether companies, plus AT&T and Union Pacific railroad, indicated business was picking up. And most said they expected it to get even stronger later this year. Peter Buchanan, a senior economist at CIBC World Markets, said executives have taken pains lately not to raise hopes too high for big profits in future quarters. That spread fear among investors that the economy might stall. But he says earnings results from UPS and Union Pacific should help ease such worries. "If you're moving stuff, it's a broad indicator covering spending by both businesses and consumers," Buchanan says. "Companies are erring on the side of caution in their forecasts ... but on the ground the real results don't look so bad." As the economy struggles to mount a lasting recovery, Wall Street has been looking for evidence that companies are actually pulling in more money — not just increasing profits by ruthlessly cutting costs. It certainly liked what it saw Thursday. The Dow Jones industrial average rose more than 200 points. The big question is whether companies will stop hoarding cash and start spending more to expand their operations and hire freely. They're likely to do that only after they feel confident that demand from their customers will justify the cost of new hires. Outside the financial sector, American companies had stockpiled more than $1.8 trillion in cash through the end of March, a 26 percent increase over the same period in 2009. If the rosy corporate outlooks give companies the confidence to step up hiring, "then this can be better than a good quarter or good second half" — it can mean the economy is good, said Chris Hobart of Hobart Financial Group in Charlotte, N.C. Caterpillar, which makes heavy machinery and is considered a bellwether of manufacturing activity, said its orders were growing and it was selling more equipment to the mining and energy industries. 3M, which makes everything from Post-it notes to films for flat-screen televisions, said it was optimistic about the recovery and raised its forecasts for revenue and profits. The good news wasn't limited to manufacturing. AT&T, which provides cellular service to the iPhone and iPad, reported higher profits and a raft of new customers. Union Pacific said it was taking on more carloads and expected to haul even more goods. There were notes of caution, to be sure. UPS, for example, raised its earnings outlook but said much of its confidence about the rest of this year comes from international shipments. And two government reports Thursday sent a reminder that the weak housing and job markets are making it hard for the recovery to take flight. Sales of previously occupied homes fell in June. And new claims for unemployment aid jumped last week. Together, they signaled that companies won't see demand from their U.S. customers jump anytime soon. Separately, the Conference Board, a private research group, said its gauge of future economic activity dropped in June, the second decline in three months. Still, the company results Thursday were far better news than Wall Street had received in most other batches of corporate earnings reports this week. Stocks for companies like General Electric, IBM and Texas Instruments had taken hits because of disappointing sales, even when profits were up. Most of the forces that have brought the economy out of other steep downturns either aren't strong enough to do it this time or are absent altogether. Spending by everyday Americans has risen an average of about 2½ percent in the most recent three quarters with available data. In the bounceback after the steep 1981-82 recession, it grew nearly three times as quickly. The housing market has shown signs of life, but the housing collapse was part of what got the nation into its mess, and home prices face a long climb back. And the unemployment rate has stayed stubbornly close to 10 percent. Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke told Congress on Thursday that the economy needs continued government stimulus spending to strengthen the recovery and reduce unemployment. But more stimulus spending would be a tough sell with congressional Republicans, who say the first round hasn't helped enough. Steven Ricchiuto, chief economist at Mizuho Securities, said a manufacturing recovery can't lead to strong and sustained economic growth unless Americans are willing to shop more. Spending by consumers accounts for 70 percent of U.S. economic activity. "The idea was that the manufacturers would grow, and then we'd get new jobs and the consumer would take over," he says. "But consumer spending has been exceptionally weak." Wall Street, at least, appeared to be betting Thursday that consumer spending and housing would both pick up. The Standard & Poor's index of retail stocks surged about 3 percent, outperforming the broader market. Homebuilder stocks rose, too. ___ ajc.com

To: bentway who wrote (579986)	8/8/2010 4:01:16 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1576015

I hadn't realized how far Fox and O'Reilly were taking the race issue. They are making it very clear that they are standing up only for the white race....and only that portion of the white race that is affluent. Let the race wars begin.......... MADDOW 2, O'REILLY 0.... A couple of weeks ago, there was an interesting dustup between Fox News' Bill O'Reilly and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. While these kinds of disputes can often become petty and tiresome, the area of disagreement in this case is actually pretty interesting, and so I'm glad it's continuing. To briefly recap for those just joining us, as the Shirley Sherrod matter was unfolding, Rachel noted O'Reilly's misguided role in pushing nonsense, and tied it to Fox News' role in pushing racial divisions. O'Reilly responded by boasting about his ratings, leading Rachel to note that the truth matters more than the size of one's audience. O'Reilly followed up in his syndicated column, calling Rachel a "loon," and calling the notion that Fox News is trying to scare white voters "preposterous." He labeled Rachel's comments "paranoid dishonest rants," lacking even "a shred of evidence." O'Reilly added that Fox News has great ratings. This week, Rachel responded that the argument is so "stupid," it "doesn't even get dressed up in Latin phrasing." She added that Fox News "consistently runs stories it says are news, but that nobody else really covers. Stories that are ginned up, exaggerated, caricatured, in some cases flat-out made-up scare stories designed to make white people feel afraid of black people. Designed to make it seem like black people -- or in some cases immigrants -- are threatening white people and taking what is rightfully theirs. You may not like that diagnosis of what Fox has been up to, but to say there's no evidence -- not 'a shred of evidence,' as he said -- that's bullpucky." [watch video] After highlighting a wide variety of examples to bolster her case, Rachel concluded, "[R]emember, Mr. O'Reilly says there is not a shred of evidence that Fox News hypes stories about scary black people taking white people's stuff. "I am not interested in playing cable news insult ping-pong with Mr. O'Reilly, but as much as he keeps insisting that I'm no one worth arguing with, that I'm an 'uber-leftist' -- he called me that in his column -- and a loon twice now, and a slightly larger percentage of 1% of the population watches his show than the proportion of 1% of the population that watches my show, for all he complains about how unimportant I am, my criticism that Fox News scares white people on purpose to politically benefit conservatives -- damn the consequences for the country -- that criticism appears to have struck a nerve over at Fox. It appears to have gotten under Mr. O'Reilly's skin. "Good." washingtonmonthly.com