Archive | Economy RSS feed for this section

Well-off people soon to finally be inconvenienced by sequestration – Salon.com

23 Apr

Sequestration has now hit air travel, with 10% of our air-traffic controllers being furloughed every day. And that means flights are being delayed all over the place.

I am guessing that over the next few days a lot of Americans are going to hear about these delays, or be personally inconvenienced by them, and think to themselves wait, the sequester thing is still happening? Well yes, it is, because so far it hasn’t been that bad, for certain Americans. Other Americans, though, have been aware of the cuts since when they went into effect.

Thus far, many of the people directly affected by sequestration cuts have been the sort of people whose desires and policy preferences are easily ignored by our political institutions. Larry Bartels has shown that politicians are quite responsive to the views of their rich constituents, but not particularly concerned with anyone else. “The views of middle-class constituents matter rather less, while the views of constituents in the bottom third of the income distribution have no apparent effect on their senators’ roll call votes.” Martin Gilens has found basically the same thing.

via Well-off people soon to finally be inconvenienced by sequestration – Salon.com.

Tags: , , , ,

Almost Half the Residents of New York City are at or near poverty – NYTimes.com

21 Apr

The rise in New York City’s poverty rate as a result of the recession has apparently eased, but not before pushing nearly half of the city’s population into the ranks of the poor or near-poor in 2011, according to an analysis by the Bloomberg administration.

That year, according to the city’s measure, about 46 percent of New Yorkers were making less than 150 percent of the poverty threshold, a benchmark used to describe people who are not officially poor but who still struggle to get by. That represents a rise of more than three percentage points since 2009, when the nation’s recession officially ended.

via City Report Shows a Growing Number Are Near Poverty – NYTimes.com.

Tags: ,

Banks Revive Risky Loans and Mortgages – NYTimes.com

19 Apr

Boys and their toys:

The alchemists of Wall Street are at it again.

The banks that created risky amalgams of mortgages and loans during the boom — the kind that went so wrong during the bust — are busily reviving the same types of investments that many thought were gone for good. Once more, arcane-sounding financial products like collateralized debt obligations are being minted on Wall Street.

via Banks Revive Risky Loans and Mortgages – NYTimes.com.

Tags: , ,

In Divided Market, the Bigger the Companies, the Better They Fare – NYTimes.com

15 Apr

Big seems to be better for the biggest companies, at least for the moment, but not for the rest:

“Big companies have found a way not just to survive but to prosper despite the broader economy and all the uncertainty,” said Howard Silverblatt, a senior index analyst at Standard & Poor’s. “There’s a disconnect between them and the rest of the world.” Investors are also looking farther ahead, discounting what economists are calling a spring swoon, and focusing on prospects for healthier growth late this year and into 2014.

After finally achieving what experts estimate was a healthy 3 percent annual growth rate in the first quarter of 2013, the American economy is expected to slow to half that pace in the next two quarters as higher payroll taxes and automatic government spending cuts begin to bite.

And:

“It’s a bifurcated economy,” said William C. Dunkelberg, chief economist at the National Federation of Independent Business, which represents small-business owners. “Corporate profits are at a record, but all the data we have say small business is dead in the water.” Last week, the group reported that its Small Business Optimism index declined in Marchafter rising for the previous three months.

Sounds to me like the Big Boys are vampires sucking the life out of the economy.

via In Divided Market, the Bigger the Companies, the Better They Fare – NYTimes.com.

The Real Spending Problem – NYTimes.com

19 Mar

Tax breaks favor the rich, and are functionally the equivalent of spending.

Each year, the government doles out tax breaks worth $1.1 trillion. That is more than the cost of Medicare and Medicaid combined. It is more than Social Security. It tops the defense budget, and it tops the budget for nondefense discretionary programs, which include most everything else.Tax breaks work like spending. Giving a deduction for certain activities, like homeownership or retirement savings, is the same as writing a government check to subsidize those activities. Functionally, they mimic entitlements. Like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, they are available, year in and year out, in full, to all who qualify. Yet in budget talks, Republicans ignore tax entitlements, which flow mostly to high-income taxpayers, while pushing to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

via The Real Spending Problem – NYTimes.com.

Tags: ,

Right to a Lawyer Often Eludes the Poor – NYTimes.com

16 Mar

According to the World Justice Project, a nonprofit group promoting the rule of law that got its start through the American Bar Association, the United States ranks 66th out of 98 countries in access to and affordability of civil legal services.

“In most countries, equality before the law means equality between those of high and low income,” remarked Earl Johnson Jr., a retired justice of the California Court of Appeal. “In this country for some reason we are concerned more with individuals versus government.”

via Right to a Lawyer Often Eludes the Poor – NYTimes.com.

Tags: , ,

For 20-Somethings, Ambition at a Cost – NYTimes.com

4 Mar

Smells like indentured servitude:

The recession has been no friend to entry-level positions, where hundreds of applicants vie for unpaid internships at which they are expected to be on call with iPhone in hand, tweeting for and representing their company at all hours.

“We need to hire a 22-22-22,” one new-media manager was overheard saying recently, meaning a 22-year-old willing to work 22-hour days for $22,000 a year.

via For 20-Somethings, Ambition at a Cost – NYTimes.com.

Tags: , ,

With Biggest Strike Against Biggest Employer, Walmart Workers Make History Again | The Nation

26 Nov

Hanover and Severn, MD—For about twenty-four hours, Walmart workers, union members and a slew of other activists pulled off the largest-ever US strike against the largest employer in the world. According to organizers, strikes hit a hundred US cities, with hundreds of retail workers walking off the job (last month‘s strikes drew 160). Organizers say they also hit their goal of a thousand total protests, with all but four states holding at least one. In the process, they notched a further escalation against the corporation that’s done more than any other to frustrate the ambitions and undermine the achievements of organized labor in the United States.

“I’m so happy that this is history, that my grandkids can learn from this to stand up for themselves,” Miami striker Elaine Rozier told The Nation Thursday night. Before, “I always used to sit back and not say anything…. I’m proud of myself tonight.”

Rozier and her co-workers kicked off the Black Friday strike around 7:30 EST Thursday night; it rolled from Miami through big cities like Chicago and smaller ones like Tulsa, where overnight stocker Christopher Bentley Owen, agitated by an intimidating “captive audience” meeting, decided at the last minute to join the organization and became his store’s sole striker. After holding back because he didn’t plan to stay in his job for long, said Owen, he recognized that millions of other low-wage workers offer the same reason not to get involved. “Meanwhile,” he said, “there are millions of people in those jobs…at some point, people have to get together.”

via With Biggest Strike Against Biggest Employer, Walmart Workers Make History Again | The Nation.

Tags: ,

The Real Estate Deal That Could Change the Future of Everything – Neighborhoods – The Atlantic Cities

20 Nov

Why the real estate industry sucks:

Investors primarily concerned with a quick return have given us what real estate developer Chris Leinberger calls a disposable built environment. We’ve taken a 40-year asset class in real estate, he says, and turned it into a five-to-seven-year one. This is one byproduct of the weird reality that it’s easier for people who don’t live in your community to invest in it, that it’s easier to finance new suburban strip malls than to redevelop an empty storefront.

via The Real Estate Deal That Could Change the Future of Everything – Neighborhoods – The Atlantic Cities.

Tags: , ,

Morning Rush Hour at the Holland Tunnel, Jersey Side: Say Hello to the End of the World

18 Nov

IMGP0980rd

A month ago I used Holland Tunnel traffic as a vehicle for explaining how, with the best of intentions, our world has gotten too big and unwieldy. Here’s some photos of rush hour traffic that I took on November 27, 2006 at roughly 7AM.

The tolls have doubled since then, not to mention the price of gas. Cynical rumour has it that the increase is mostly to fund the construction of One World Center. At 1776 feet tall–get it, 1776?–it’s the tallest office building in the USofA. And it’s a dog. The office space isn’t needed.

IMGP0982rd

Just think how tall that puppy’d be, though, if the USofA had gone metric. 1776 meters! Yikes! But that’d sure show those Arabs, wouldn’t it? Continue reading →

Tags: , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →