Friday, August 10, 2007

That durn economy - From the Hartford Courant "U.S. deficit runs lower": "The federal deficit so far this budget year is running sharply lower, driven by record revenue pouring into government coffers."

6 comments:

Brian said...

Bush's tax cuts for the rich are the problem. He has given so much money back to the rich, they have been giving it to the government becuase they don't know what to do with it.

Anonymous said...

For the 50th time...
"Save us, individual piece of positive news! Ward off the nasty data! Reality can't be nuanced!"

Anonymous said...

You'd better shake those pom-poms harder, guys.

Markets have been rocked by news of problems in banks and funds exposed to risky investments in U.S. mortgage and asset-backed markets, provoking fears of a choking-off of the cheap credit that has been fueling global growth.

The Fed said it stood ready to provide emergency funds to banks and conducted two operations to pump cash into the system... Such statements from the Fed are unusual, with the last having come after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, and reflect the seriousness that policy-makers view the current disorder in markets. Before the Sept. 11 attacks, the Fed had not offered reassurance on its willingness to provide liquidity since Oct. 20, 1987 - the day after Black Monday.

Markets remained very jittery and dealers were anxious to know where the troubles might erupt next. Asia stocks sank, and European stocks erased all their gains for the year on the FTSEurofirst 300 index. Then Wall Street took a pounding.

"The ECB's moves have helped to sooth the immediate liquidity concerns of markets but not much more," said Julian Callow at Barclays Capital.

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Too soon to look for housing market bottom

Home sales, prices keep sliding as industry moves into uncharted territory

With sales and prices of new and existing homes continuing a downward slide, it’s too soon to say how much longer the worst housing recession since 1989-91 will last, according to economists and housing analysts.

Back-to-back reports this week showed ongoing slides in both sales and prices of new and existing homes. The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that sales of new single-family homes dropped by 1.6 percent last month after a brief surge in April sales. But new home sales have fallen in every other month this year.

Monday’s report also came with a gloomier outlook: The real estate trade group now expects existing home sales to fall 4.6 percent this year, worse than its previous forecast of a 2.9 percent drop. And the median price for a home is expected to fall by 1.3 percent this year — the first annual decline on record.

On top of rising inventories of unsold homes and a wave of foreclosures on bad loans, the housing market is now feeling the impact of a recent jump in mortgage interest rates.


Ummm... yay?

JorgXMcKie said...

Oh, yeah. The doom-and-gloomers have correctly predicted 7 out of the last 2 recessions. I'm sure they're right again, just as they were in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006 about those economic crashes.

Good thing the market wasn't 'rocked' by anything in the '90s, right?

Let's see, Dow declined from 14,000 to 13,300 or so. That's a whole 5% and not even in 'market correction' territory. And, the market overall was up just a bit this week. Guess all that 'rocking' didn't have much effect.

Anonymous said...

Bush! Bush!
Goooooooo, BUSH!
(clap clap clap)
Knock 'em back, knock 'em back,
Waaaaaay back!
(clap, kick, clap, jump)
Hey, hey,
Hey, hey,
You hear what we say,
Get out of the way,
Ain't gonna deal with reality today!
(clap clap clap)
Tax cuts,
Tax cuts,
Will kick your butts,
Mention anything else,
And you must be nuts!
G!
W!
B!
Wooooooo!!!!

Anonymous said...

Brian & Dave, Have you expert pundits taken any note of the recent financial news?

Shrewd! Uncanny! I bet you guys called the '06 midterms as a Republican "hold," too.