Economy Improving Faster Than Expected: Bad News For Republicans?

[Jackson]

Private-sector jobs rise 206,000: ADP

Employment in the private sector rose by a seasonally adjusted 206,000 jobs in November — the largest gain since last December and almost twice the average increase in recent months. The October level was revised up to 130,000 from a prior estimate of 110,000.

“November’s increase in employment normally would be associated with a decline in the unemployment rate. An acceleration of employment is consistent with data showing that GDP growth, which slowed sharply around the turn of the year, is gradually recovering,” said Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers, which produces the report from anonymous payroll data supplied by Automatic Data Processing Inc.

And what should the employment number be if on a path to normalcy? This has taken 3 years! And it's hardly better.

 

[Listening]

I don't know about the Dems, but most people who were against the wars were against them from the very beginning - and still are. Remember the anti-war protests going on everywhere, especially before the clusterf*ck that is Iraq? I was there, and have never wavered in my anti-war stance. Also, I do believe that the Bush admin. lied to congress and cooked intelligence in order to get Iraq going, which is why Dems went along with it. And I do believe they invaded solely to enrich their crony defense contractor buddies and to set up a free market zone for them in the middle east.

Believe it or not, but there many conservatives who were against the war from the time before it started.

I don't know about lied (I am afraid that is a given and so the question is if they lied more than normal), but I do believe that Bush did not have the best interest of American at heart when he went to war.

I have always been a huge fan of Dick Cheney. I don't know what he saw there...but it gives me pause.

However, until it is explicitely clear as to why this was necessary, my position will not change as it has never changed.

I would not want to fight in battle and I would not want anyone to do what I won't do.

 

[bripat9643]

It's not improving fast enough to save Obama and the Congressional Dims. Unemployment will still be well above 8.5% by the time the election rolls around.

Private-sector jobs rise 206,000: ADP

Employment in the private sector rose by a seasonally adjusted 206,000 jobs in November — the largest gain since last December and almost twice the average increase in recent months. The October level was revised up to 130,000 from a prior estimate of 110,000.

“November’s increase in employment normally would be associated with a decline in the unemployment rate. An acceleration of employment is consistent with data showing that GDP growth, which slowed sharply around the turn of the year, is gradually recovering,” said Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers, which produces the report from anonymous payroll data supplied by Automatic Data Processing Inc.

 

[LordBrownTrout]

20 to 25 million unemployed and we're talking improving? What kind of fantasy land are you living in? The economy stinks and until the housing market comes back and unemployment improves to 5 percent, we're just dressing up a hog.

 

[Lovebears65]

Lets relive this number after Christmas before you jump on board saying our economy is better. GEEZ

 

[Jackson]

Cancellations Plague Pending Home Sales

"In fact, when backing out Armageddon 2008 as a one-off, the average post-crash October is up exactly the same as 2011," notes mortgage analyst Mark Hanson. "Bottom line, with record low prices, record low rates, record high pending cancellations, the 8.3 percent [not seasonally adjusted] month-over-month change is far worse than average."

The other problem is that a good chunk of those contracts signed will not reach the closing table. Thirty-three percent of Realtors reported at least one cancellation in October, which is up from 8 percent a year ago.

News Headlines

 

[Jackson]

Productivity Weaker Than Thought, Wages Slip

The rebound in U.S. nonfarm productivity growth was not as strong as previously estimated in the third quarter, while wages declined for two straight quarters, supporting the Federal Reserve's views of moderate inflation pressures.

Productivity increased at a 2.3 percent annual rate, the Labor Department said on Wednesday, a downward revision to its previous estimate of 3.1 percent.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast productivity, which measures hourly output per worker, being revised down to a 2.6 percent growth rate. The revision reflects a much slower gross domestic product growth pace during the July-September period.
Productivity fell at a 0.1 percent pace in the second quarter

News Headlines

You're welcome.

 

[Sundial]

The economy went off a cliff in the last year of the Bush administration.

The recovery began in the first year of the Obama administration.

GDP is larger than ever.

We still need to improve the economy faster: A jobs bill and a continuation of the payroll tax are needed. We need to vote more Republicans out of office to get those things.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

The economy went off a cliff in the last year of the Bush administration.

The recovery began in the first year of the Obama administration.

GDP is larger than ever.

We still need to improve the economy faster: A jobs bill and a continuation of the payroll tax are needed. We need to vote more Republicans out of office to get those things.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p4-vPrcDBo]Obama: Shovel Ready jobs not shovel ready - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Listening]

The economy went off a cliff in the last year of the Bush administration.

The recovery began in the first year of the Obama administration.

GDP is larger than ever.

We still need to improve the economy faster: A jobs bill and a continuation of the payroll tax are needed. We need to vote more Republicans out of office to get those things.

Gee....look at the slope of that curve prior to it falling. I guess we can blame GWB (who I think was awful...for that).

We need to vote smarter people into office so they will quit telling us they can really do anything with the economy. The drop off was a business cycle (in part) with some help from Barney Frank. That or macroeconomics is a waste of time.

President Obama has done nothing for the economy. Excpet possibly slow it down. The economy is pretty much self healing.

 

[ShaklesOfBigGov]

When did the shit start hitting the fan? 2006-2008. THAT is why unemployment went up. Please provide me with the legislation that Dems passed the minute they got into office that suddeny cost millions of people their jobs. I'll wait.

You want a history of what's behind this economic mess?

The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) forces banks to make loans in poor communities, loans that banks may otherwise reject as financially unsound. Under the CRA, banks must convince a set of bureaucracies that they are not engaging in discrimination, a charge that the act encourages any CRA-recognized community group to bring forward. Otherwise, any merger or expansion the banks attempt will likely be denied. But what counts as discrimination?

According to one enforcement agency, "discrimination exists when a lender's underwriting policies contain arbitrary or outdated criteria that effectively disqualify many urban or lower-income minority applicants." Note that these "arbitrary or outdated criteria" include most of the essentials of responsible lending: income level, income verification, credit history and savings history--the very factors lenders are now being criticized for ignoring.

The Government Did It - Forbes.com

The Trillion-Dollar Bank Shakedown That Bodes Ill for Cities by Howard Husock, City Journal Winter 2000

Congressional Time-Line surrounding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

September 1999

With pressure from the Clinton Administration, Fannie Mae eased credit requirements on loans it would purchase from lenders, making it easier for banks to lend to borrowers unqualified for conventional loans. Raines explained that "there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market," reported the New York Times.

With this action, Fannie Mae put itself at substantial risk in the event of an economic downturn. "From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us," warned Peter Wallison. "If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry." The danger was known.


September 1999

A study by Freddie Mac, confirming earlier Federal Reserve and FDIC studies, contradicts race discrimination arguments for CRA. The study found that African-Americans with annual incomes of $65-$75,000 have on average worse credit records than whites making under $25,000, showing that the difficulty in qualifying was not because of race but because of bad credit records. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas accordingly entitled a paper "Red Lining or Red Herring?"


March 2000

Rep. Richard Baker (R-Louisiana) proposed a bill to reform Fannie and Freddie's oversight in a House Subcommittee on Capital Markets.

Rep. Frank (D-Massachusetts) dismissed the idea, saying concerns about the two were "overblown" and that there was "no federal liability there whatsoever."


June 2003

Freddie Mac reported it had understated its profits by $6.9 billion. OFHEO director Armando Falcon Jr. requested that the White House audit Fannie Mae.


July 2003

Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska), Elizabeth Dole (R-North Carolina) and John Sununu (R-New Hampshire) introduced legislation to address Regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The bill was blocked by Democrats


September 2003

Treasury Secretary John Snow testifies that Congress enact "legislation to create a new Federal agency to regulate and supervise the financial activities of our housing-related government sponsored enterprises" and set prudent and appropriate minimum capital adequacy requirements, says a White House release.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts): "I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis. That is, in my view, the two government sponsored enterprises we are talking about here, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not in a crisis.


October 2003

Fannie Mae discloses $1.2 billion accounting error.


September 2004

OFHEO reported that Fannie Mae and CEO Raines had manipulated its accounting to overstate its profits. Congress and the Bush administration sought strong new regulation and authority to put the GSEs under conservatorship if necessary. As the Washington Post reports, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac responded by orchestrating a major campaign "by traditional allies including real estate agents, home builders and mortgage lenders. Fannie Mae ran radio and television ads ahead of a key Senate committee meeting, depicting a Latino couple who fretted that if the bill passed, mortgage rates would go up." Again, GSE pressure prevailed.


October 2004

Rep. Baker again warned about the coming crisis in the Wall Street Journal: "Then there's the lesson of a company, Frankenstein-like, seemingly grown so powerful that it can intimidate and arrogantly flout all accountability to the very government that created it."

In a subcommittee testimony, Democrats vehemently reject regulation of Fannie Mae in the face of dire warning of a Fannie Mae oversight report. A few of them, Black Caucus members in particular, are very angry at the OFHEO Director as they attempt to defend Fannie Mae and protect their CRA extortion racket.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California): "Through nearly a dozen hearings where, frankly, we were trying to fix something that wasn't broke."

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California): "Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and particularly at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines."

Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-New York): "And as well as the fact that I'm just pissed off at OFHEO, because if it wasn't for you I don't think that we'd be here in the first place, and now the problem that we have and that we're faced with is: maybe some individuals who wanted to do away with GSEs in the first place, you've given them an excuse to try to have this forum so that we can talk about it and maybe change the, uh, the direction and the mission of what the GSEs had, which they've done a tremendous job. There's been nothing that was indicated that's wrong, you know, with uh Fannie Mae. Freddie Mac has come up on its own. And the question that then presents is the competence that, that, that, that your agency has, uh, with reference to, uh, uh, deciding and regulating these GSEs. Uh, and so, uh, I wish I could sit here and say that I'm not upset with you, but I am very upset because, you know, what you do is give, you know, maybe giving any reason to, as Mr. Gonzales said, to give someone a heart surgery when they really don't need it."

Rep. Ed Royce (R-California): "In addition to our important oversight role in this committee, I hope that we will move swiftly to create a new regulatory structure for Fannie Mae, for Freddie Mac, and the federal home loan banks."

Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Missouri): "This hearing is about the political lynching of Franklin Raines."

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts): "Uh, I, this, you, you, you seem to me saying, ‘Well, these are in areas which could raise safety and soundness problems.' I don't see anything in your report that raises safety and soundness problems."

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California): "Under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines, everything in the 1992 Act has worked just fine. In fact, the GSEs have exceeded their housing goals. What we need to do today is to focus on the regulator, and this must be done in a manner so as not to impede their affordable housing mission, a mission that has seen innovation flourish from desktop underwriting to 100% loans."

Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Missouri): "I find this to be inconsistent and a and a rush to judgment. I get the feeling that the markets are not worried about the safety and soundness of Fannie Mae as OFHEO says that it is, but of course the markets are not political."

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts): "But I have seen nothing in here that suggests that the safety and soundness are at issue, and I think it serves us badly to raise safety and soundness as kind of a general shibboleth when it does not seem to me to be an issue."


January 2005-July 2006

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska), co-sponsored by Sens. Sununu and Dole and later Sen. McCain, re-introduced legislation to address GSE regulation.

Bloomberg writes, "If that bill had become law, then the world today would be different. . . . But the bill didn't become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn't even get the Senate to vote on the matter. That such a reckless political stand could have been taken by the Democrats was obscene even then."
Archived-Articles: Why the Mortgage Crisis Happened

(Sept 2008) WASHINGTON — The unprecedented federal takeover of mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae announced on Sunday is a bold attempt to stabilize financial markets and restore the faltering housing market, but it thrusts trillions of dollars of risk directly onto taxpayers' shoulders.

"You can call it a bailout, you can call it a safety net or you can call it a rescue package, but the bottom line is the American taxpayer is left footing the bill," says Richard Yamarone, director of economic research at Argus Research.

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae combined own or guarantee $5.4 trillion in outstanding mortgage debt. The government's decision to place both agencies into a conservatorship — in essence, taking on responsibility for that debt by wresting control from the corporations — is an historic move.

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported Friday that more than 4 million homeowners, or 9% of those with mortgages, were delinquent by at least one payment or in foreclosure at the end of June. It's the highest rate ever, the MBA says.

Taxpayers take on trillions in risk in Fannie, Freddie takeover - USATODAY.com

 

[Truthmatters]

more completely wrong bullshit from some con

 

[Meister]

New claims for unemployment benefits rose unexpectedly last week, popping above 400,000 for the first time in just over a month and reinforcing the view that the battered labor market was healing only slowly.
KEY POINTS: * Initial claims for state unemployment benefits climbed to a seasonally adjusted 402,000 from an upwardly revised 396,000 in the prior week, the Labor Department said on Thursday. * Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims at 390,000
Instant view: Jobless claims rise above 400,000 - International Business Times

Yeah, the economy is humming on all cylinders right now.

 

[ShaklesOfBigGov]

more completely wrong bullshit from some con

More liberal talking points without facts? Not at all surprised.

 

[Listening]

more completely wrong bullshit from some con

And an astonishingly brilliant rebutal from the board figurehead for those morons on the left who can't argue their way out of a paper bag.

How completely stupid you look.

Didn't Frank Raines pull in something like 90 million. For managing a government institution ?

Wow.

And they say the public sector is underpaid.

 

[Freedomlover]

The number of new jobs needs to be above 300,00 in order to show much improvement in the economy. Today 12/1 new unemployment applications increased by over 400,00 leaving a net loss over 200,000. That is not growth!