Small business lending slashed by $43 billion last year - Feb. 11, 2011:
"NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The numbers back up what small business owners have been saying for two years: Main Street suffered a brutal credit crunch.
The total value of outstanding loans to small businesses plunged by $43 billion, or 6.2%, between June 2009 and June 2010, according to a report released this week by the Small Business Administration. That's a drop of $59 billion, or 8.3%, from June 2008."
Oh look, the SBA took just two years to recognize the obvious. The banks have contributed to (if not been totally responsible for) the current "economy". By throttling small businesses by withholding loans, they have squashed tens of thousands of businesses and cost millions of jobs. And all this in spite of the generous "bailouts" that the Obama administration has showered on them, which of course was squandered on generous bonuses and raises to the banks' top management. As small businesses crash and burn, the big corporations quietly swoop in and corner their market. Of course they have no problem getting loans from the banks, in addition to sitting on hundreds of billions in cash.
"The Small Business Jobs Act, passed in September, authorized the creation of a $30 billion fund run by the Treasury Department that offers ultra-cheap capital to banks with less than $10 billion in assets. The idea is that pumping capital into small banks will get money in the hands of Main Street businesses."
And the Obama administration's solution to this? Oh great, yet another bailout. Thirty billion was a nice New Year bonus, don'tcha think? The cash never made it beyond the banks payroll. Thirty big-big ones for American taxpayers to cough up, again.
Showing posts with label bailout. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bailout. Show all posts
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Stimulus price tag: $2.8 trillion
Stimulus price tag: $2.8 trillion - Dec. 20, 2010:
"NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Since the recession began three years ago, Congress has poured a total of $2.8 trillion into the economy in an effort to spur hiring, get people spending again and prop up industries struggling to stay afloat.
While the $858 billion package of tax cuts passed last week was the biggest slice of stimulus yet, it accounts for less than a third of all the money spent since the start of 2008, according to multiple cost estimates prepared by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office over the last three years."
...
"Public works projects like road and school repair or efforts to develop clean energy and high speed rail, along with help for state and local governments, was a relatively small part of the total stimulus -- just over $250 billion, or about 9% of the spending, most of it found in the stimulus act passed at the start of the Obama administration."
All right, this year is just about over. Lets face facts, this nearly 3 trillion dollars was wasted. The economy still isn't "fixed", jobs are still not being created, small businesses are still crashing and burning. Bankers and automakers are snickering all the way to the proverbial bank, everyone else (and their children) are and will be paying for this debacle for decades to come.
Come January a new Congress will have to figure out a way, not just to fix the economy, but also to undo the ravages of "bailouts" that have made things worse. Lets wish them luck, common sense, and basic math skills. And remind them of the next Congressional elections in 2012, aka the Mayan calendar's final year.
If only we had all the gold those Mayans had back then!
"NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Since the recession began three years ago, Congress has poured a total of $2.8 trillion into the economy in an effort to spur hiring, get people spending again and prop up industries struggling to stay afloat.
While the $858 billion package of tax cuts passed last week was the biggest slice of stimulus yet, it accounts for less than a third of all the money spent since the start of 2008, according to multiple cost estimates prepared by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office over the last three years."
...
"Public works projects like road and school repair or efforts to develop clean energy and high speed rail, along with help for state and local governments, was a relatively small part of the total stimulus -- just over $250 billion, or about 9% of the spending, most of it found in the stimulus act passed at the start of the Obama administration."
All right, this year is just about over. Lets face facts, this nearly 3 trillion dollars was wasted. The economy still isn't "fixed", jobs are still not being created, small businesses are still crashing and burning. Bankers and automakers are snickering all the way to the proverbial bank, everyone else (and their children) are and will be paying for this debacle for decades to come.
Come January a new Congress will have to figure out a way, not just to fix the economy, but also to undo the ravages of "bailouts" that have made things worse. Lets wish them luck, common sense, and basic math skills. And remind them of the next Congressional elections in 2012, aka the Mayan calendar's final year.
If only we had all the gold those Mayans had back then!
Monday, October 11, 2010
Structural unemployment? What nonsense.
Why structural unemployment isn't the job market's problem - Oct. 11, 2010:
"NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- An increasingly fierce debate is raging over the reason why unemployment is still so stubbornly high.
While most people think businesses simply aren't hiring enough to absorb the millions of unemployed workers, a rising tide of prominent economists dispute that. They claim that there are jobs out there, just not the right candidates to fill them."
I guess its a slow news day for this Columbus Day holiday, but for any media outlet to publish such a nonsense story is atrocious. Of course there are "jobs" out there, but would you really expect an engineer, say, to flip burgers at the local fast-food joint ... or would he/she look for a job as, say, an engineer perhaps?
"With more than 3 million job openings reported by the Labor Department, the unemployment rate should be close to 6.5%, said Kocherlatokta, not the 9.6% where it stands now.
He said that one of the reasons for the worsening imbalance is that so many underwater homeowners who can't sell their houses are unable to move in search of job opportunities."
Narayana Kocherlakota, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Perhaps his Presidentshipness would like to fill one of the job openings in his own agency, say, as a janitor? And this clown is in charge of a Federal Reserve Bank, no wonder we are wallowing in the fiscal doldrums.
Its quite simple. Employers employ employees. Duh. Less employers, less openings for employees, ergo higher unemployment. The current tax and regulatory environment coupled with the lack of any available funding from banks is killing our small businesses, whose owners are packing it up and looking for jobs themselves. Bailing out banks, car makers and health insurance companies is NOT creating jobs - because it is NOT helping small businesses to survive, forget about growth. Small businesses form the bulk of "employers", not mega-corporations, who are gleefully slicing and dicing at their employee salaries and benefits while the current Congress is blindly stumbling around throwing wads of taxpayer money into every trough they can find.
The trillions that have been wasted on these foolish bailouts should have been routed to small business as tax credits. It would not cost as much, since no taxpayer money would be paid out up front. As businesses prosper, they will increase tax revenues in the long run by increasing hiring and thus consumer spending from the happily employed, who will no doubt run out and buy High Definition 3D televisions with every paycheck. And if any business fails, it didn't cost the government a dime - since the failed business is not going to be taking that tax credit. I'm no economist, but this is straightforward common sense. In the immortal words of Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet), "Common sense is not so common". Especially in Congress.
"NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- An increasingly fierce debate is raging over the reason why unemployment is still so stubbornly high.
While most people think businesses simply aren't hiring enough to absorb the millions of unemployed workers, a rising tide of prominent economists dispute that. They claim that there are jobs out there, just not the right candidates to fill them."
I guess its a slow news day for this Columbus Day holiday, but for any media outlet to publish such a nonsense story is atrocious. Of course there are "jobs" out there, but would you really expect an engineer, say, to flip burgers at the local fast-food joint ... or would he/she look for a job as, say, an engineer perhaps?
"With more than 3 million job openings reported by the Labor Department, the unemployment rate should be close to 6.5%, said Kocherlatokta, not the 9.6% where it stands now.
He said that one of the reasons for the worsening imbalance is that so many underwater homeowners who can't sell their houses are unable to move in search of job opportunities."
Narayana Kocherlakota, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Perhaps his Presidentshipness would like to fill one of the job openings in his own agency, say, as a janitor? And this clown is in charge of a Federal Reserve Bank, no wonder we are wallowing in the fiscal doldrums.
Its quite simple. Employers employ employees. Duh. Less employers, less openings for employees, ergo higher unemployment. The current tax and regulatory environment coupled with the lack of any available funding from banks is killing our small businesses, whose owners are packing it up and looking for jobs themselves. Bailing out banks, car makers and health insurance companies is NOT creating jobs - because it is NOT helping small businesses to survive, forget about growth. Small businesses form the bulk of "employers", not mega-corporations, who are gleefully slicing and dicing at their employee salaries and benefits while the current Congress is blindly stumbling around throwing wads of taxpayer money into every trough they can find.
The trillions that have been wasted on these foolish bailouts should have been routed to small business as tax credits. It would not cost as much, since no taxpayer money would be paid out up front. As businesses prosper, they will increase tax revenues in the long run by increasing hiring and thus consumer spending from the happily employed, who will no doubt run out and buy High Definition 3D televisions with every paycheck. And if any business fails, it didn't cost the government a dime - since the failed business is not going to be taking that tax credit. I'm no economist, but this is straightforward common sense. In the immortal words of Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet), "Common sense is not so common". Especially in Congress.
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