Economy for Sale

Recently Mark J. Kamstra of York University and Robert J. Shiller of Yale proposed a new way of investing in the US government. This new method is essentially like buying a share of the economy. This would give the government another way to gain capital and stimulate growth. This uses a sort of voucher policy tool. The interesting aspect of this is (not mentioned in the article) is that if this sort of investment into the economy starts picking up, then more pressure will likely be put on the government to start thoroughly auditing it's institutions and making the information public. This type of transparency would greatly improved the efficiency and overall legitimacy of the program and the US government.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/27/buying-shares-in-the-u-s-economy/?ref=business

Economy: A Depressing Situation

The state of the economy seems to be much more disappointing to citizens than in previous years according to studies in 2008. With gas prices over $4 a gallon, a mortgage crisis that has hit the financial stability of the United States, and an economic growth rate of only 1.6 percent it is no surprise many citizens are upset with the way things are going. With only two "official" depressions within the last twenty-five years our economy is actually in a better place than in previous years. There seems to be hope however, while our current recession has continued through 2009 and seems to be leveling off in 2010. There are a few strong things what we have going for our economy, energy being a particularly interesting strong point. Energy is the fundamental part of all society, from powering your car to go to the grocery store to powering the factory that manufactured your automobile. The last 20 years the United States has been fortunate with low energy costs. Oil may be rising but it is not just an American cost problem, oil is a global commodity traded on the world market, rising oil costs are not an American-only problem. Meaning that while people may categorize rising oil prices as an affect of the recession it is affecting every global market. One major problem that the United States faces in the coming years are age-old problems, the United States has tended to borrow more than it earns, and if we are to make a step in the right financial direction we must stop borrowing and start paying back our debts.

http://www.publicagenda.org/citizen/issueguides/economy/overview

Recession Has Officially Ended

According to the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research, the recession has officially ended in June of 2009. the recession started in december of 2007 and lasted 18 months, making it the longest economic downturn since World War 2. Recession dates are based on economic indicators and trends such as gross domestic product, income, employment, industrial production and wholesale-retail sales. Economists generally wait quite a while before officially declaring the recession is over to make sure it does not plummet shortly after. Economists claim that a recovery began later in the same month it ended, however the recovery has not been significant enough for most average Americans to take note.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/the-recession-has-officially-ended/?hp

Economists: Extend Bush tax cuts

This CNN article looks at the debate on wether the tax cuts put in place by Bush should be renewed, cancelled, or edited. The current administration seems to be favoring continuing the cuts for the working class but ending them for the highest level. Economists disagree with this viewpoint By extending the cuts economists believe that this will greatly help the economy. As our recent classes have shown the economy is number one on the minds of many Americans and many feel it should be our number one or only priority. Recovery is going slower than expected and while our government desperately needs to pull in more money, many believe that the average American simply can't afford a hike. Congress has some time before they must decide, but this topic will be closely watched by the media and the people.

Article: http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/19/news/economy/what_to_do_economists_survey/index.htm?hpt=T2

-Kayla Carson

Is Obama deliberately destroying the economy?

Do you think Obama is deliberately destroying the economy? That has been a question raised recently, however we now believe that Obama and his administration are just naive. They have tried to create many new policies they believe will help the economy, however they are only hurting us more because they are created so quickly and with little thought behind the plan. We were not able to track the $787 billion stimulus cash, the Cash-for-Clunkers program entrapped more than it helped, and the employment rate more than doubled while Obama was in office. Not to say all of these were Obama's mistakes but he certainly hasn't shown any promises. He tried to put the government in charge of health care, auto loans, student loans, etc., and ends up asking for tax help to cover all of these expenses! This clearly shows his lack of experience in economics. Obama needs to do something quick in order to gain back some popularity before the mid term elections come around in the next couple of months!

http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2010/09/10/the-jury-is-in-obama-is-deliberately-destroying-the-economy/

Is Europe’s Model Better Than America’s Shock Capitalism?

In every economic system, big corporations and managers bring together natural resources, labor, and technology to produce and distribute goods and services. But the way these different elements are organized and used reflect a nation's political ideals and its culture. It comes to no shock that America is categorized as having a capitalistic economy. The term capitalist is used to describe a system in which a small group of people control the large bulk of money and make the most important economic decisions. In America we call this small group the Federal Reserve, which is our central banking system that controls our money supply. In this article, Gilbert Mercier compares the American capitalistic approach to economy with the European's "new vision." He speculates on how in our economy it seems that the wealthy-few get richer, while the vast majority of Americans grow poorer, which correlates with what we discussed in class about the gap between the two groups growing larger. While America's economic system is experiencing a downturn, Europe is experiencing an economic boom post WWII. It is now the world’s wealthiest trading block, almost as large as the US and China combined. Mercier also states that Europe arguably has "the best health care and other social supports for families and individuals; widespread use of renewable energy technologies and conservation; and an unmatched regional network of trade, foreign aid, and investment that link one-third of the world to the European Union’s 27 member states and nearly half billion citizens." Europe operates as a union, which according to political writer and program director at the New America Foundation Steven Hill, "is an entirely new species of human organization, the likes of which the world has never seen." The European Union marks a "new evolutionary stage in supranational development" in the way it closely integrates entire regions of nation-states economically and politically. Europe used America and an ideal when forming the first stages of this union, but I believe its our turn to step back and what we can learn for their success story.

-Rebecca Jania

http://newsjunkiepost.com/2010/04/07/is-europes-model-better-than-americas-shock-capitalism/