Investors, Fund Managers Fear Obama Victory

[beretta304]

The Congressional Budget Office recently laid out the grim consequences of dropping off the fiscal cliff. Starting Jan. 1, tax cuts signed by President George W. Bush expire as do Obama's cuts to payroll taxes. Federal spending on defense and other domestic programs will drop, while emergency unemployment benefits run out.

The combined effect off all these changes would shrink the economy nearly 3 percent at an annual rate in the first half of next year, the CBO estimates, and push unemployment up to 9.1 percent by the fall. Recent surveys of businesses suggest the threat is already weighing on the minds of executives when they're making hiring and spending plans.

For the world's biggest money managers, the fiscal cliff now ranks as the greatest hazard to the global economy, according to Bank of America's most recent fund manager survey. It topped the European debt crisis, a collapse in Chinese real estate and even a war between Israel and Iran.






Investors Eye the 'cliff' as Obama gains in Polls

 

[VaYank5150]

The Congressional Budget Office recently laid out the grim consequences of dropping off the fiscal cliff. Starting Jan. 1, tax cuts signed by President George W. Bush expire as do Obama's cuts to payroll taxes. Federal spending on defense and other domestic programs will drop, while emergency unemployment benefits run out.

The combined effect off all these changes would shrink the economy nearly 3 percent at an annual rate in the first half of next year, the CBO estimates, and push unemployment up to 9.1 percent by the fall. Recent surveys of businesses suggest the threat is already weighing on the minds of executives when they're making hiring and spending plans.

For the world's biggest money managers, the fiscal cliff now ranks as the greatest hazard to the global economy, according to Bank of America's most recent fund manager survey. It topped the European debt crisis, a collapse in Chinese real estate and even a war between Israel and Iran.






Investors Eye the 'cliff' as Obama gains in Polls

Why would they fear an Obama victory? These cuts were proposed and passed by the Congress in a bipartisan manner?

 

[Full-Auto]

The Congressional Budget Office recently laid out the grim consequences of dropping off the fiscal cliff. Starting Jan. 1, tax cuts signed by President George W. Bush expire as do Obama's cuts to payroll taxes. Federal spending on defense and other domestic programs will drop, while emergency unemployment benefits run out.

The combined effect off all these changes would shrink the economy nearly 3 percent at an annual rate in the first half of next year, the CBO estimates, and push unemployment up to 9.1 percent by the fall. Recent surveys of businesses suggest the threat is already weighing on the minds of executives when they're making hiring and spending plans.

For the world's biggest money managers, the fiscal cliff now ranks as the greatest hazard to the global economy, according to Bank of America's most recent fund manager survey. It topped the European debt crisis, a collapse in Chinese real estate and even a war between Israel and Iran.






Investors Eye the 'cliff' as Obama gains in Polls

Democrats have made it very clear.......Raising taxes on the Rich only will bring in 70 billion a year.....More then whats necessary to pay the bills of trillion dollar deficits.....

 

[LadyGunSlinger]

They're right to be fearful. Real unemployment is being hidden and not discussed by the Leftist Main Media in order to get their candidate elected.. BUt here are the real numbers:
Fox News Misleads on Unemployment Rate -- Daily Intel

14.7 percent

 

[CrusaderFrank]

The Congressional Budget Office recently laid out the grim consequences of dropping off the fiscal cliff. Starting Jan. 1, tax cuts signed by President George W. Bush expire as do Obama's cuts to payroll taxes. Federal spending on defense and other domestic programs will drop, while emergency unemployment benefits run out.

The combined effect off all these changes would shrink the economy nearly 3 percent at an annual rate in the first half of next year, the CBO estimates, and push unemployment up to 9.1 percent by the fall. Recent surveys of businesses suggest the threat is already weighing on the minds of executives when they're making hiring and spending plans.

For the world's biggest money managers, the fiscal cliff now ranks as the greatest hazard to the global economy, according to Bank of America's most recent fund manager survey. It topped the European debt crisis, a collapse in Chinese real estate and even a war between Israel and Iran.


Investors Eye the 'cliff' as Obama gains in Polls

Why would they fear an Obama victory? These cuts were proposed and passed by the Congress in a bipartisan manner?

Because they're smarter than you

 

[LadyGunSlinger]

The Congressional Budget Office recently laid out the grim consequences of dropping off the fiscal cliff. Starting Jan. 1, tax cuts signed by President George W. Bush expire as do Obama's cuts to payroll taxes. Federal spending on defense and other domestic programs will drop, while emergency unemployment benefits run out.

The combined effect off all these changes would shrink the economy nearly 3 percent at an annual rate in the first half of next year, the CBO estimates, and push unemployment up to 9.1 percent by the fall. Recent surveys of businesses suggest the threat is already weighing on the minds of executives when they're making hiring and spending plans.

For the world's biggest money managers, the fiscal cliff now ranks as the greatest hazard to the global economy, according to Bank of America's most recent fund manager survey. It topped the European debt crisis, a collapse in Chinese real estate and even a war between Israel and Iran.


Investors Eye the 'cliff' as Obama gains in Polls

Why would they fear an Obama victory? These cuts were proposed and passed by the Congress in a bipartisan manner?

Because they're smarter than you

LOL Ouch! Biatch slap complete.

 

[Mac1958]

.

Got some news today from a very trustworthy source.

Don't be surprised to see the monthly QE3 bill increase to about $80 billion within a few months.

Don't be surprised to see the total bill end up north of $2 trillion.

Chew on that one for a while.

.

 

[waltky]

Not as many people buyin' apples from Granny onna street corner...

‘Fiscal cliff’ fight already a drag on U.S. economy
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - Worries about the federal government’s “fiscal cliff” are taking their toll on the economy well ahead of the year-end deadline, which analysts say is looking like it may be more damaging in the run-up than in the reality.

Businesses frequently cite uncertainty about what will happen with $600 billion in government spending cuts and expiring tax breaks scheduled to start taking effect Jan. 1 as their reason for refraining from hiring or spending on facilities and equipment. Reports make it clear that this uncertainty contributed significantly to the economic slowdown in the spring and summer as well as to a continuing slump in manufacturing. Activity at the nation’s factories — already depressed by the recession in Europe and slowdown in China, two of the biggest U.S. export markets — went into reverse during the summer as U.S. businesses put orders on hold.

Job growth trailed off from robust levels of more than 200,000 a month earlier this year as employers shied away from making permanent staffing decisions in a fog of political uncertainty. “The primary catalyst for the slowdown in the economy has been dysfunctional fiscal policy,” said Ward McCarthy, managing director at Jefferies & Co., noting that U.S. growth has slowed from 2 percent on average last year to 1.6 percent in the first half of this year. He expects growth to brake further to about 1 percent in the final months of the year. “The closer the politicians take the economy to the edge of the cliff, the greater will be the associated anxiety and uncertainty that fiscal policy will generate an economic calamity, and the more damage that will be done,” he said.

The decline in business investment — a key source of strength driving the economic recovery since 2009 — emerged dramatically last month when orders for big-ticket goods plummeted by 13 percent. Analysts said business investment in equipment likely declined during the summer quarter for the first time in the three-year recovery. “As anxiety and uncertainty about the fiscal cliff have increased, businesses have made the prudent decision to delay investment spending decisions,” Mr. McCarthy said. Just as growth has slowed precipitously, hiring also hit a wall, with job growth falling from 225,000 a month on average in the first quarter to 145,000 in the summer quarter. “The labor market has clearly lost traction,” Mr. McCarthy said.

Delaying hiring, investment

 

[Oldguy]

If Wall Street insiders fear an Obama victory, that's the strongest incentive to vote for him that i've heard yet.

 

[waltky]

Granny says dem politicians done already been greasin' the slippery slope...

‘Fiscal cliff’ already hampering U.S. economy, report says
October 25,`12 - The “fiscal cliff” is still two months off, but the scheduled blast of tax hikes and spending cuts is already reverberating through the U.S. economy, hampering growth and, according to a new study, wiping out nearly 1 million jobs this year alone.

The report, scheduled for release Friday by the National Association of Manufacturers, predicts that the economic damage would deepen considerably if Congress fails to avert the cliff, destroying nearly 6 million jobs through 2014 and sending the unemployment rate soaring to near 12 percent. Across the nation, companies are bracing for the fallout by laying off workers, letting jobs go vacant and postponing major purchases. Commerce Department data released Thursday show business investment stalled in September, as orders for core capital goods such as machinery and equipment plateaued at $60.3 billion.

“The general consensus is things are going to get a lot worse as people expect this fiscal cliff to be on us,” said Thomas Riordan, chief executive of Neenah Enterprises in Appleton, Wis., which makes cast-iron products such as truck axles and manhole covers. The company has eliminated about 150 jobs over the past few months, and four of its six plants have begun operating on short workweeks. Like other business owners, Riordan expressed extreme frustration with Washington’s failure to deal with the looming crisis, leaving momentous decisions about the economy until after the Nov. 6 election. “Everyone is blaming everyone else as the country grinds to a halt,” he said. “I don’t think the political leadership in this country has an understanding of how long it could take to turn this boat around.”

The term “fiscal cliff” is Washington shorthand for an array of policies set to take effect in January, sucking more than $500 billion out of the economy next year. That includes about $100 billion in automatic cuts to the military and federal agencies, adopted by Congress last year as part of a plan to reduce record budget deficits. It also includes about $400 billion in tax hikes, caused primarily by the expiration of a temporary payroll tax cut and other tax breaks adopted during the George W. Bush administration.

All told, the cliff amounts to the largest spurt of deficit reduction in more than 40 years. But it is also likely to push the fragile economy back into recession, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The CBO predicts that a recession would be significant but brief, with unemployment peaking around 9 percent and economic growth recovering during the second half of 2013. The projections in the NAM report — prepared by Jeff Werling, executive director of the Interindustry Forecasting Project at the University of Maryland — offer a substantially darker view of the consequences of inaction, joining others who have questioned CBO’s relatively benign assessment.

MORE

 

[waltky]

Liberals fear betrayal if Obama wins, then bargains with GOP on fiscal cliff...

Liberals fear grand bargain betrayal if President Obama wins
11/2/12 - Labor unions fear a victorious Obama would ink a deal that slashes entitlement benefits.

Labor unions and liberal interest groups are going all-out for President Barack Obama’s reelection — but they’re just as ready to turn that firepower back on him if he betrays them with a grand bargain. These groups fear a victorious Obama would ink a deal with Republicans during the fiscal cliff negotiations that slashes entitlement benefits. And that could hurt the very coalition of voters — minorities, women and low- and middle-income families — that would claim credit for his second term. Even as they turn out the vote in public to keep Obama in office, in private they’re plotting a strategy aimed at pressuring him to protect those who reelected him.

The dual-track campaign, led by the AFL-CIO, MoveOn and a network of progressive advocacy organizations, highlights the political vice grip that awaits Obama if he wins Tuesday. He wants a large-scale deficit deal. But it would inevitably mean making concessions to Republicans that infuriate the Democratic base that spent the past two years and tens of millions of dollars trying to return him to the White House. Progressives worry about which Obama will show up after Election Day: the pragmatist who offered benefit cuts to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in the 2011 debt ceiling talks or the partisan chastened by a failed deal to slice into prized Democratic programs.

“The base is not going to be happy with ham and egg justice” that requires disproportionate sacrifice from all but the wealthy, said Van Jones, Obama’s former green jobs czar and founder of Rebuild the Dream, a progressive advocacy group. “It is a fiscal showdown. We’re not going to blink. There is no reason in the world why the pillars of middle-class security, the earned benefits that our parents fought for, should be on the chopping block.” The course Obama chooses would set the tone for his second term — and it’s not just Democrats he would need to massage. Republicans are likely to retain control of the House, and with it the power to derail or approve large items on the president’s agenda, such as immigration reform. They will demand major fixes to entitlement programs and a renewal of the Bush-era tax rates for the wealthiest Americans.

Democrats in the White House and on Capitol Hill are gaming out scenarios, including the possibility of the president releasing his own plan and traveling the country to sell it. But the exact strategy depends on the outcome of Tuesday’s presidential, House and Senate elections, how congressional Republican leaders interpret the results and whether the GOP relents on taxes, officials said. Obama, if he wins, will assert that voters had a choice — and his vision on taxes, entitlements and the deficit prevailed.

Read more: Liberals fear grand bargain betrayal if President Obama wins - Carrie Budoff Brown - POLITICO.com