This is an update. I just read in Business Week that the actual amendment passed is not what is presented originally the below post. I've now confirmed:
This amendment, as modified, is being cosponsored by Senator Grassley and has been cleared by both sides. This amendment simply requires recipients of TARP funding to meet strict H-1B worker hiring standards to prevent displacement of U.S. workers.
Outsourcing expert Ron Hira estimates this will only affect 1,000 jobs. Remember Citigroup alone fired 50,000 and also signed a $2 billion dollar offshore outsourcing contract after receiving a $25 billion dollars in U.S. taxpayer money.
Fannie Mae will drop some credit-score requirements, reduce income-documentation standards and waive the need for appraisals in some cases, according to a notice yesterday to lenders posted on the Washington-based company’s Web site. The changes apply to loans that the company owns or guarantees.
The BLS reports today that January lost 598,000 jobs in the United States, pushing U3 to 7.6%. This isn't a very scary figure, which is why they report it in the news. U6 is much scarier- 13.9%. But I contend that neither of these tell the real story from a "the economy should provide first level Maslow needs to the people" point of view.
Instead, I propose that the real story is answered by the question, what is the ratio of dependents (non-labor people) to workers (people with jobs). This includes, of course, sole-income investors (those who rely on dividends from investment as their sole source of income), stay-at-home parents, the disabled and sick, and children all as dependents. It also includes all the unemployed as dependents, if you don't have income from a job then you're living off of the income of other people in one form or another for the most part.
Talk about being brain washed. An economist is calling on the Obama administration to enact a temporary national freeze in job cuts until an economic stimulus package takes hold.
Layoffs at America's largest companies are only weakening the economy at a perilous time, said Lawrence Chimerine, who was chairman of the economic firm WEFA Group and prior to that was manager of economic research at IBM Corp.
Chimerine is proposing that the White House call for a "national initiative" in which Corporate America would agree to temporarily put a freeze on further job cuts - probably for three or four months - which he says would allow the Obama stimulus package to take hold.
Chimerine spoke on a conference call this week supporting the Obama stimulus plan. He said he was "in the process" of raising his idea with Obama and his economic team.
Here is the epitome of labor arbitrage and the obvious inhuman view IBM has on it's employees.
IBM is telling soon to be fired U.S. and Canadian workers they can have a job, but only if they move to India or China and work for Indian and Chinese wages. (It is yet to be seen what India and China have to say about this with foreigners coming in and taking jobs!).
The climate is warm, there's no shortage of exotic food, and the cost of living is rock bottom. That's IBM's pitch to the laid-off American workers it's offering to place in India. The catch: Wages in the country are pennies-on-the-dollar compared to U.S. salaries.
The past week, the news that Merrill Lynch had hurried to pay out billions of dollars in bonuses before the end of the year, provoked a torrent of tirades and rage across America. Now, progressive blogs are in another uproar over the perceived lack of leadership from President Barack Obama in the fight for a stimulus program. Many defenders of President Obama demand to know what he might do different. And many seem not to feel, or do not yet understand, that the financial and banking system needs a complete reformation. Well, here’s my suggestion, in the form of a speech the President can give explaining a few crucial, truly transformative measures to the nation.
It appears notorious bad trade deals, deregulation Larry Summers is staging a coup on who can influence overall economic policy and one of the toes he is stepping on is past Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker>
Paul Volcker has grown increasingly frustrated over delays in setting up the economic advisory group President Barack Obama picked the former Federal Reserve chairman to lead, people familiar with the matter said.
This is completely insane. We now have two more tax cuts coming through the Senate.
One to give home buyers a $15,000 tax break to anyone who buys a home and another in the Stimulus to buy a car.
How many super rich are going to gobble up houses as a result!
How many rich will buy a car?
We need income people! The layoffs are like a blizzard and the last thing working America needs are more incentives to go into more debt, more consumerism and less real production.
Her amendment would provide tax breaks to those who purchase new cars and light trucks between Nov. 12, 2008, and the end of this year that cost less than $49,500. Families earning more than $250,000 wouldn’t be eligible for the break. Mikulski estimated the amendment would save car buyers $1,500 on a $25,000 purchase.
James West makes the case the USD collapse and, by extension, a bond default.
Critics argue that it just can't happen .... have they crunched the numbers?
Number one among the indicators favoring this scenario is what is happening in the U.S. Treasuries auction market.
Last Thursday, an $30 billion auction in five-year notes failed to stir the interest of traditional primary dealers. The auction itself was saved by an anonymous “indirect” bid.
Buyers are discouraged by the prospect of what is expected to amount to $2 trillion total issuance for the full year of 2009. The further out the maturities on notes, the more bearish the sentiment towards them. The only way to entice buyers is through the increase in yields.
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