Protecting the US Dollar and Watching the Federal Reserve
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The economy is growing again. So when are the jobs that go with growth going to get here?
Not anytime soon, unfortunately. The consensus forecast is that job losses will continue through the end of this year, with many economists not expecting unemployment to peak until next summer. That will add to the 7.2 million jobs already lost in this downturn.
Read More: -By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer
NEW YORK (AP) – Have you checked the interest rates on your credit cards lately? Odds are they’re going way up.
That’s because credit-card companies are rushing to raise rates and tack on extra fees ahead of a law slated to take effect Feb. 22 that is supposed to limit such moves in the future. In some cases, rates are doubling to as high as 30 percent or more, even for people who pay their bills on time.
The current maneuvering by the card companies is serving up another blow to American consumers who are already struggling with their finances. U.S. lawmakers let that happen by giving the card companies nine months to prepare for the rules.
Read More: -Rachel Beck
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British financial journalist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard says that food will never be so cheap again, and biofuels are to blame.
“Barack Obama has not reversed the Bush policy on biofuels, despite food riots in a string of poor countries last year and calls for a moratorium. The subsidy of 45 cents per gallon remains,” Evans-Pritchard writes in the U.K. Telegraph.
“For investors wishing to rotate out of overstretched rallies — Wall Street’s Transport index and the Russell 2000 broke down last week — this is a rare chance to buy cheap into a story that will dominate the rest of our lives.”
Read More: -By: Julie Crawshaw
CNBC TV star Jim Cramer says the stock market has begun a 5 percent to 7 percent correction, sparked by signs of a slow economic recovery.
“We are right to worry that a new leg down might have begun,” he said on his Mad Money show.
It is the technology, bank, and oil sectors that sent the market soaring more than 60 percent over the past seven months, he says.
Read More: -By: Dan Weil
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NEW YORK (Fortune) — The economy may be showing signs of life, but that doesn’t mean the financial system is fixed or healthy growth has returned, according to a panel of high-profile Wall Street figures who gathered the night before the latest GDP numbers were announced.
For one thing, the government is unlikely to pass regulation that effectively regulates the financial-services industry, short seller Jim Chanos said Wednesday.
While the new administration came in “guns blazing,” legislation has been too slow to emerge in the wake of the financial crisis, said Chanos, founder of the Kynikos Associates hedge fund, during a discussion on the future of markets hosted by the New York Historical Society. Chanos added that as more days ticked by, the urgency to regulate large financial institutions would pass.
Read More: -By Katie Benner, writer-reporter
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HONG KONG — The Chinese government is making headway in an investigation that could further stifle the struggling U.S. auto industry.
Under anti-dumping law, if the Ministry of Commerce finds that Ford Motor Company ( F – news – people ), Chrysler and General Motors have illegally received government subsidies or are selling their vehicles at below-market prices, it can slap higher tariffs on American-made cars sold in China.
Such a move would seem retaliatory. In September U.S. President Obama imposed a 35% duty on Chinese tires imported to the U.S. after determining that they disrupted the market. One day later, on a Saturday, China announced that it was looking into whether the U.S. was dumping chicken parts and cars on its domestic market.
Read More: -Hana R. Alberts
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The global markets are at risk of crashing when the dollar rebounds, says economist Nouriel Roubini.
Roubini, a professor at NYU, is credited with long predicting the financial collapse of 2007 and 2008.
“In the short run what’s happening is there’s a wall of liquidity, not just in the U.S., but around the world, that is chasing assets,” he told CNBC.
Read More: -Newsmax
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An early progress report on President Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan overstates by thousands the number of jobs created or saved through the stimulus program, a mistake that White House officials promise will be corrected in future reports.
The government’s first accounting of jobs tied to the $787 billion stimulus program claimed more than 30,000 positions paid for with recovery money. But that figure is overstated by least 5,000 jobs, or one in six, according to an Associated Press review of a sample of stimulus contracts.
The AP review found some counts were more than 10 times as high as the actual number of jobs; some jobs credited to the stimulus program were counted two and sometimes more than four times; and other jobs were credited to stimulus spending when none was produced.
Read More: -By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE and MATT APUZZO Associated Press Writers
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Tuesday told a packed room of Wall Street dealers and bankers they could not look America in the eye and argue that financial regulation is fine as it is.
Geithner said the financial system was tragically fragile after experiencing the worst crisis since the 1930s, and the government must respond by adding new regulation as well as improving on current ones.
“It’s a war of necessity, not a war of choice,” he said at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association annual meeting in New York. “And it’s a just war.”
Read More: -Reuters
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According to Morgan Stanley euro analyst Teun Draaisma, we’ve got just a little bit more rally left, and then a long, low multi-year grind as moneys starts to get tight.
The tightening phase may start in the next quarter or two, Draaisma observes.
“We believe investors need increasingly to consider the implications of monetary and fiscal stimulus withdrawal,” he says.
Read More: -By: Julie Crawshaw
Google+The Sound Money Institute is and educational organization dedicated to the stability and soundness of the United States Dollar. Faced with unprecedented pressure to spend beyond its means the United States Government has pressured the Federal Reserve Bank to monetize the debt or in other words they are printing currency to fund deficit spending by the US Treasury.
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